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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



HE DID IT; 



The Life of a New England Bo^ 



Written in His Adopted State 
California 



ASA SANBORN EDGERLY 



San Francisco, Cal. : 

Press of H. S. Crocker Co. 

1909 






©CU251T87 



DEDICATED. 



I dedicate this book to Mrs. Violet Mabel 
Hoggins Webber, in consideration of the great 
service she has rendered me in writing it. 

The Author. 




A. S. EDGERLY 




Mrs. A. S. EDGERLY 



INDEX. 



CHAPTEE I. Pa S e 

My Boyhood Days 13 

CHAPTEE II. 

My School Days 21 

CHAPTEE III. 

I Studied Dentistry 40 

CHAPTEE IV. 

Engaged in Teaching School 43 

CHAPTEE V. 

Got Married 49 

CHAPTEE VI. 

Teaching Continued 51 

CHAPTEE VII. 

Went Into the Eestaurant Business With My Brother 

in Almira, New York, and Other Changes 59 

CHAPTEE VIII. 

Engaged in the Life Insurance Business 62 

CHAPTEE IX. 

Engaged in Farming 66 

CHAPTEE X. 

Canvassing and Ice Cream and Eeal Estate Business. . . 69 
CHAPTEE XI. 

Built the Edgerly Block 77 

CHAPTEE XII. 

The Boom Broke 82 

CHAPTEE XIII. 

Eunning Booming Houses 86 

CHAPTEE XIV. 

Eooming Houses Continued 92 

CHAPTEE XV. 

Gave Up Business 95 



CHAPTER XVI. Pa 2 e 

Built Four Homes on the Two Hundred-Acre Vineyard 

North of Town for My Children 99 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Extracts 103 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

My Own Architect Ill 

CHAPTER XIX. 

My Habits of Life 112 

CHAPTER XX. 

The Church 117 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Lessons to Poor Young Men 118 

CHAPTER XXII. 

My Views of Spiritual Life 120 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

There Is a God 123 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Sunday Trading 125 

CHAPTER XXV. 

Cutting Wood 127 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

A Word to Young Men and Women About to Marry. . . 129 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

My Wife 131 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Golden Wedding 133 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Go to Oakland 134 

CHAPTER XXX. 

Cataract 135 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

Deed All My Property to My Wife and Children . , 137 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

Looking Forward 139 



HE DID IT; 



The Life of a New England Boy 



CHAPTEE I. 



My Boyhood Days. 

Away back in New England where the wild 
fox digs his hole unscared, and the red squirrel 
hoards his nuts in the hollow of a tree undisturbed, 
where the wild turkey builds its nest and rears its 
young unmolested, and where the country is held 
in its icy embrace for six months of the year, 
is where the writer first saw the light on March 
15, 1834. Born of the persecuted Puritan descend- 
ents of poor but respected parents, I passed my 
youth on a New England farm, so sterile, that it 
seldom made proper returns for hard work be- 
stowed. Being the sixth child of the numerous 
family of twelve children it became necessary for 
me to look elsewhere for a living. 



14 The Life of a New England Boy 

It was a custom in that country for boys to re- 
ceive their time from their parents at the age of 
eighteen, so that I, being desirous of an education, 
told my father that if he would pay my expenses 
for six months ' schooling at the Academy, I would 
work for him on the farm for the other six months 
of the year. This talk was had on an early Mon- 
day morning whilst we were mowing in the field 
before sun-up, as it was customary for us to 
begin the day's work during hay-time before the 
sun rose. He said he would talk it over with my 
mother and report to me that evening. I included 
in my proposition that the expenses of my sister, 
Martha, next younger than me, should also be 
paid at the Academy for three months of the year. 
He reported acceptance of my proposition that 
evening. This was in the month of July, 1852, 
and school at the Academy was to commence the 
first of September following. A few days before 
the first of September my father went to the vil- 
lage where the Academy was, four miles away, 
and made arrangements there with the merchant 
of the little town for our board. The condition of 
the trade with the merchant was that we were to 
board with him and his familv for five davs of 



The Life of a New England Boy 15 

the week for one shilling a day each. On Monday 
morning of the first day of September he took us 
to our boarding place. On Friday evening of the 
same week he came for us and took us home, and 
thus we paid for five days board per week, at one 
shilling per day — a shilling is sixteen and two- 
thirds cents. 

We attended the Academy during the eleven 
weeks of the term. The school was taught that 
term by Rev. Reed, pastor of the Free Baptist 
Church of the village. 

My first interest was aroused in education by 
a young lady who was my first sweetheart, Chris- 
tiana Jacobs, who lived one-fourth mile from my 
home, whom I visited with my sister, Martha, one 
Sunday evening, when she made the statement, 
that she was going to school at the Academy in the 
fall and insisted on Martha's and my going, too. 
I thought the matter over that night and made the 
proposition to my father, and it was accepted, that 
we should go to the Academy in the fall. Although 
I enjoyed her society during the school term, a 
neighbor boy succeeded in marrying her later on. 

After years had passed on her only son and 
daughter were graduated at New Hampton In- 



16 The Life of a New England Boy 

stitution, where I had graduated years before, and 
the son came to me in California where I was then 
living and I took him in my arms, as it were, and 
helped him to get a school where he taught for 
two years and earned money enough to pay his 
expenses in college. After graduating from col- 
lege, he came back to California and married a 
girl whose acquaintance he had formed while 
teaching school there, and took her back to Cleve- 
land, Ohio, where he became a professor in a col- 
lege there. 

At the beginning of the last term of school, of 
the agreement with my father I went to Guilford 
Academy, twelve miles away from my home. Pro- 
fessor Benjamin Stanton was the principal. After 
passing through the school term, I engaged to 
teach a school near that town for ten dollars a 
month and my board, and I boarded all over the 
neighborhood. 

After teaching two months where I had a suc- 
cessful school, I went home, and from there I went 
to Boston, Mass., to find employment. After walk- 
ing the" streets of Boston for about three weeks, 
I found a job in a grocery store for which I agreed 
to work for one year for seventy-five dollars and 



The Life of a New England Boy 17 

board. I worked three months and my health 
failed me. I left that place and went to my uncle, 
Daniel Edgerly, who. lived in the city of Boston. 
After staying there about one month I had suf- 
ficiently recruited my health to go to work again. 

I started to find another job; I found a job 
where I could earn ten dollars a month and board 
in a baker shop. After working there three 
months my health failed me again and I left there 
and went to my father's home in Meredith, New 
Hampshire. 

Although my father had a numerous family of 
twelve children, ten of whom were at home at one 
time, the two oldest were away at work in the 
cotton factory, where they earned some money, the 
bulk of which, after paying their expenses, they 
brought home to my father and gave it to him as 
a loan. We had a school for three months in the 
winter and three months in the summer; in the 
winter the large and small went to school, in the 
summer only the smaller children attended the 
school because the older children had to stay at 
home and help make a crop, for all of the family 
old enough to earn anything had to do his share 
of the work on the farm, because the farm was so 



18 The Life of a New England Boy 

sterile that we had to make every thing count to 
keep us through the hard winter. The land was 
so poor that the country there was given the name 
of "Hard Scrabble, " for we had to scrabble 
through the summer to get enough to keep us 
through the winter. During the winter term of 
school father kept an old mare and sleigh for us 
to go to school with, and there were eight of us 
children to go, and we would all pile together in 
the sleigh and my oldest sister, Hannah, would 
take the lines and whip and drive to the school- 
house a mile away. After unloading the children 
she turned the mare's head toward home, tied the 
lines to the dashboard, then taking the whip give 
the old mare a few cuts and she would start off 
and never stop until she arrived home. In the 
evening father would come with the same old mare 
and take us home. In the summer time we would 
attend the school on foot, carrying our lunch pail. 
Usually the lunch pail had a respectable dinner for 
us all, but one day mother was so put to it that 
she did not have a sufficiently respectable dinner 
for us, so she put into a large pail milk and into 
another pail bread, and when the noon hour came 
we were ashamed to eat our bread and milk before 



The Life of a New England Boy 19 

the other scholars, so Hannah, who was the oldest 
and manager of the group,, took us all off to the 
woods ; there we sat down and ate our bread and 
milk picnic fashion, each having his own tin cup 
and spoon. The numerous family of my father 
made clothing and provisions for the family a 
serious problem, but we have always said that we 
never went to bed hungry and we all had a special 
suit of clothes for Sunday, because father kept 
sheep and had the wool carded and the girls spun 
the wool into thread and my mother wove it into 
cloth and dyed it, and father had a tailoress come 
there once a year and made the goods into cloth- 
ing for the boys, and a dressmaker came to make 
the goods into dresses for the girls, and father 
being a cobbler, had a neighbor cobbler to come 
there and make the leather obtained from the 
slaughtering of the animals for the meat that was 
salted down to supply the family, into boots and 
shoes for the family. Thus my father supported 
his- family from the proceeds df the old rocky farm. 
The bleak weather with its snow and ice made it 
necessary for him to spend a larger portion of 
the winter in breaking the roads. The way they 
did it was that after every storm the neighbors 



20 The Life of a New England Boy 

would club together with their oxen and sleds and 
drive through the roads in the district set apart 
by the officials to keep clear, so that about one-half 
of the year's time was used in keeping the roads 
clear. The balance of the time, after breaking the 
roads, was consumed in cutting and hauling the 
wood to supply the family. A large pile of wood 
consisting of several cords was piled up in the 
door yard of the house. In the spring of the year 
when the snow was melting /and the roads im- 
passable, it was father's business and the boys to 
cut and prepare the wood for the stove and haul 
it into the shed where it was stored for summer 
use. 



The Life of a New England Boy 21 



CHAPTER II. 

My School Days. 

Prof. Benjamin Stanton, who was the professor 
at the Academy of the school in Guilford Academy 
where I last went, was elected by the Institute 
Board of New Hampton as principal of the New 
Hampton School. It also had a theological de- 
partment. In this school they educated and grad- 
uated young men to enter college, and there is a 
female department where they educate and grad- 
uate young ladies. When I was at the age of 
nineteen, I told my father that I was not physically 
strong to be a working man and that I must go to 
school and fit myself for lighter work than a day 
laborer. "But how can you do it?" he said. "I 
don't know how I will do it," I says, "but where 
there is a will there is a way." And I went to 
New Hampton to school. The first thing I did 
was to engage a room where I could cook, eat and 
study. I boarded myself for three years, kept 




Prof. BENJAMIN STANTON 



The Life of a New England Boy 23 

bachelors hall, had nothing to eat excepting what 
I cooked myself and what mother would send me 
in the shape of pies and cakes. I bought my books 
with the little money I had saved from my Boston 
trip, and entered the Sophomore class of the New 
Hampton Institute. I joined the Social Frater- 
nity, a prominent literary society, and remain a 
member to this day. This was the fall term of 
the Sophomore year. 

Col. Lewis, a native of Mississippi, came to New 
Hampton to recover his health long before the 
forties and settled there. He soon became inter- 
ested in the New Hampton Institute. Being a 
man of great wealth, he was a power there. His 
wealth consisted in owning a large number of 
negro slaves which he owned with his brother in 
Mississippi. But his brother remained at home 
and run the plantation while he lived in New 
Hampton with his family and spent his money. 
Fronting on Main Street were fifty acres of rich 
land, running back quite a distance. He cultivated 
this land like a garden. He built near the street 
a green-house in which he cultivated grapes and 
flowers. He told me one day, while I was visiting 
his conservatory, that some people thought him 




Col. RUFUS G. LEWIS 



The Life of a New England Boy 25 

foolish to spend so much money upon fruits and 
flowers, "but," says he, "I derive more revenue 
from grapes and flowers than any farmer in the 
county does from his farm, notwithstanding that I 
have to keep it heated by day and night for one- 
half of the year." He had a family of children, 
three sons and one daughter, on which he doted, as 
Southern people of wealth will do. Being wealthy, 
he could send his children to school. They 
did not have to do a lick of work, while I, being 
poor, had to put in every moment of my leisure 
time in working to get money to help pay my ex- 
penses. While seeing this, I began to grieve that 
God had given them so much and had given me 
nothing, so one day I went to Col. Lewis, whom I 
found in his conservatory, and asked him for a 
loan or a gift, I do not remember which. He 
turned to me and said, "Because I'm able to send 
my children to school and your father is not able 
to send you, I must help you, must I not ? J ' " No, ' ' 
said he, "go on as you are now going and 
I venture to say that you will come out better in 
the end than my boys will." I went away much 
grieved because he had turned me down, but I 
have watched his sons, and his prophecy has been 



26 The Life of a New England Boy 

literally fulfilled, for his sons who have beenjraised 
in ease and plenty and were never required to work 
or do anything for themselves, have not made their 
mark in life, whilst I have succeeded so well in 
life that my property exceeds theirs by many 
thousands. Now the tables are turned ; I am rich 
while they are poor. And I owe it all to the fact 
that I had to learn to work in my boyhood. Col. 
Lewis had often been spoken against by Abolition- 
ists in New Hampton, of whom there was a goodly 
number in the neighborhood, because he owned 
slaves. It was frequently argued against receiv- 
ing contributions from his wealth, because it was 
earned largely by slave-labor, but his great popu- 
larity as a man overcame all such scruples. 

I took a school in Bristol, New Hampshire, 
across the Pemeguosic River, opposite New Hamp 
ton, where I was very successful. The day before 
the school closed there came a man from Center 
Harbor, N. H., who wanted a teacher. I intended 
to go from this school back to New Hampton and 
resume my studies, but he offered me a good price 
if I would go and teach his school, for it was dif- 
ficult to find teachers at that season of the year. 
After teaching that school Mr. Cany, a prominent 




o 






o 
o 



28 The Life of a New England Boy 

citizen, had a son and daughter who were patrons 
of my school, and he suggested to me that I go to 
Meredith Village, three miles distant, and open 
up a private school where he sent his son and 
daughter. The teaching of these schools carried 
me through the spring term, but I had kept up 
with my classes by studying extra times, and went 
back to my school for the summer term. I worked 
at haying and canvassing for books to raise money 
to help me with my expenses. At the close of this 
term I went to Cape Code to teach school. A 
member of our class went there for the purpose 
of engaging schools for the students. So many 
schools did he engage that when they went down 
there they were called the drove. "He is one of 
the drove," they would say. 

He located me at the little town called West 
Sandwich, Barnstable County, Mass. I had in 
my school seven young ladies of about my age. I 
remember distinctly the first morning I began 
school. These young ladies came trooping in and 
took their seats ; their size and beauty very much 
abashed me, buf I, following the custom of the 
school from which I came, opened the school with 
prayer. The school numbered about forty stu- 




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30 The Life of a New England Boy 

dents, very few of them of much size. After 
prayers I enrolled the names of the scholars. 
There was one young lady in the group who very 
much interested me, who afterwards became my 
wife. I boarded around the neighborhood to help 
out the length of the school which was about three 
months; my wages was thirty dollars per month 
and board. The first day at noon when I went to 
my lunch, I thought to myself that I had earned 
seventy-five cents that forenoon, the most money 
in the shortest time that I ever earned. The 
school district had a social turn, and during the 
winter there were several social parties where I 
was invited and accepted. To one of these parties 
I took two young ladies in the old-fashioned shay. 
After the party had broken up, the horse being a 
very spirited one, we drove home very rapidly, 
four miles. I took each girl to her home and then 
took the horse to the stable and went to my board- 
ing-house and immediately retired before the other 
young people had gotten home. I left my plug 
hat standing on the ante table in the hall. After 
I had gone to sleep the other members of the 
household came home and took seats in the parlor 
waiting for me to come. After they had sat about 



The Life of a New England Boy 31 

an hour they began to wonder where I was, think- 
ing I was a long time getting home, but one of 
them happened to go in the hall and saw my hat 
on the table ; she reported to the other girls in the 
parlor that I must be at home as my hat was there. 
Then they all retired. This was a huge joke on 
them, #nd the next morning at the breakfast table 
some one asked where I was the night before, 
which sat up a big laugh because I had so fooled 
them, and we had a big time over it. I always 
wore a high silk hat those days, for I thought a cap 
was not dignified enough for a school teacher. I 
was so popular in that family that we used to 
gather in the parlor and have social chats with 
the school girls that would come over. I being a 
single school teacher, became quite a favorite with 
the girls. And thus passed the winter in the 
school and social circle. At the close of the school 
we gave an exhibition; we needed lamps to light 
the school-house. Gustavus Swift, who founded 
the great Swift Packing Company of Chicago, 
was a boy at that time, called by his chums ' ' Stut- 
tering Dick," because he stuttered; he was janitor 
of the church. I invited him to bring the lamps 
of the church and light up my school-house that 



32 The Life of a New England Boy 

night. The next morning he took the lamps to 
the church. I asked him what I should give him 
for his trouble; he told me I might give him 
t-t-t-wenty f-f-f-ve c-c-c-nts i-i-i-f I w-w-was a 
m.-m-mine t-t-to. I paid him the twenty-five 
cents. This Grustavus Swift started his career 
in life by butchering sheep for one cent a head 
for his brother, who was in the meat business. He 
also went to the Brighton Market, near Boston, 
where they would buy droves of hogs, drive them 
down on Cape Cod and peddle them out to the 
people who each wanted a pig or two. This young 
man would take the money his brother gave him 
for his wages and buy a few pigs to drive on down 
the Cape with his brother and sell them out. After 
awhile he had accumulated enough to buy a drove 
for himself. He made some money then and went 
into the butcher business down on the Cape in the 
town of Barnstable. He started a market and 
sent out four wagons to sell his meat to the coun- 
try people. There were in the town four men in 
the same business who nudged each other and said 
they were sorry for the boy, for he would lose 
what he had in a few weeks, for he gave over- 
weight. In less than one year he was selling beef 



The Life of a New England Boy 33 

to these same men. He would go to Brighton and 
buy carloads of cattle, ship them down on the 
Cape, slaughter them and sell the meat to these 
four men. To get this money to buy these cattle 
he went to his uncle Paul Crowell, my wife's 
father, to borrow the money. He got six hundred 
dollars for thirty days and he paid it back the day 
before it was due, and he said that was the key to 
his success in life to pay borrowed money the day 
before it was due. When he needed more money 
than Paul Crowell could furnish him, he went to 
the Barnstable Bank and asked the president if he 
would loan him six thousand dollars. The old man 
drummed on the counter with his pencil and 
opened wide his eyes and looked at the young man 
and said, " Young man, what are you going to do 
with six thousand dollars ?" The young man re- 
plied, ' ' I am going to Albany, New York, and buy 
six carloads of cattle.' ' "What security can you 
give, ' ' the old man asked. ' i Nothing but my note, ' ' 
he said. The old banker was thunderstruck and 
thought for a moment. He knew the young man 
was a thrifty boy. He had done business with 
him for a couple of years and knew he was a 
thrifty young man and faithful in paying his loans. 



The Life of a New England Boy 35 

After a moment's thought he said, "You can have 
it," and made out a note for six thousand dollars 
which the young man signed. The day before the 
note became due the young man appeared at the 
bank window and paid the six thousand dollars 
and took up his note. He then looked up at the 
old banker and said, ' i Can I have that six thousand 
dollars again?" "Yes," the banker said, "you 
can have it," and it was paid again the day before 
it was due. This circumstances of prompt payment 
gave the young man credit for all the money the 
banks could loan. He then moved to Chicago 
where he commenced the great establishment, The 
Swift Packing Company. He borrowed money by 
the millions, but he always paid it the day before 
it was due, and this prompt payment was the key- 
note of his success. He told me this on one occa- 
sion when I was visiting him. "I have but one 
advice to give to any young man when he borrows 
money, always pay it back the day before it be- 
comes due, and this will establish his confidence 
with the banks, so that he can borrow all the 
money he wants." He said, "If I had failed to 
pay the loan when it fell due, I would have lost 



The Life of a New England Boy 37 

their confidence and been crippled for life. By 
prompt payment I established confidence/' 

School on Cape Cod having closed, I went back 
to the New Hampton school for the spring term. 
I met numerous school mates and we passed 
through the summer term, keeping up successfully 
with my class. While many of the boys were en- 
gaged in playing ball on the school ground I was 
engaged in hoeing corn for a neighbor at ten cents 
an hour during corn hoeing time. Other times I 
would be engaged in sawing wood for the neigh- 
bors around, and thus passed my time in work 
while other boys more favorably provided for 
were playing ball. After the term of school closed 
I went to work for the farmers, making hay during 
my vacation, where I earned considerable money 
to help pay my school expenses. The fall term 
passed much the same as the previous term, at the 
close of which I returned to Cape Cod to teach the 
same school where I had taught the previous 
winter. I received the same wages, but did not 
board all around over the neighborhood. I had 
virtually the same group of young ladies as 
pupils, and the one I mentioned interested 
me so much is where I boarded altogether. The 



38 The Life of a New England Boy 

close proximity to each other in the family 
caused us to become well acquainted, and finally 
ripened into courtship, so that by the time the 
term closed we had entered into arrangements to 
be mates for life, which was consumated three 
years afterwards, after I had left college and 
gone South to teach. The school having closed I 
went back to New Hampton to resume my studies 
there with much the same conditions as in pre- 
vious years. When the next fall term closed I 
went back to Cape Cod and took another school at 
Centerville, about fifteen miles further down on 
the Cape. I had a successful school and formed the 
acquaintance of a teacher in an adjoining district 
to whom I became somewhat attached, because she 
was. such a help to me. After the school term 
closed I went to Michigan to Hillsdale College, a 
Free Baptist school. I there met as president of 
the colloge Chancelor E. B. Fairfield, a noted 
educator. I entered the Sophomore class where I 
remained one term. From President Fairfield I 
learned they were in need of a teacher of drawing. 
The lady to whom I had become attached at Cen- 
terville was a teacher of drawing. I wrote to her, 
saying there was an opening there for her to teach 



The Life of a New England Boy 39 

drawing. She communicated with. President Fair- 
field, which resulted in her engagement for the 
next term, which she successfully filled. At the 
close of the Sophomore year, because some of the 
New Hampton students had gone to the Ann Arbor 
College, Michigan, I went there to visit them, and 
I was so much taken with the college that I left my 
Hillsdale College and passed the examination to 
enter Ann Arbor. 



40 The Life of a New England Boy 



CHAPTER III. 



I Studied Dentistry. 

During the vacation I went south to Ohio for the 
purpose of finding something to do to earn money. 
I took an agency to canvass for books, but met 
with very poor success as a canvasser. I met a 
man who had a patent-right for a fanning mill for 
cleaning grain. I bought the right for Cuaga 
County, Ohio. I started out to canvass for the 
sale of the patent-right. I worked about a month 
and made but one sale for which I received a gold 
watch estimated at fifty dollars. I became dis- 
gusted with the patent-right business and went 
into a dentist office in Central Ohio, to see if they 
wanted a dental student. The man told me that^ 
he did not want any students, but that he knew of 
a man who lived at Ravena, Ohio, by the name of 
Dr. Spellman, who wanted a student. I went there 
and saw Dr. Spellman and made the arrangement 
with him to study dentistry for a year. As I had 



The Life of a New England Boy 41 

no means to pay him a tuition except the watch, I 
told him I would give him my watch for the 
tuition. He said 1 could carry the watch until the 
end of the year, and then he would take it. He 
did so. I had no means of living while engaged 
as a dentist student, so I went to a professor of a 
private school at Eevana, by the name of Hague- 
man, and engaged to teach two hours a day for my 
board and room. I taught three months and then 
I had an opportunity to go to Shalersville, a town 
four miles away, where I could get a private 
school. I went there and had a successful school. 
During the term of school I met a lady by the name 
of Mason, who lived with her father in the village, 
and fell in love with her. She was a widow and 
fourteen years older than myself. I finished my 
school and then went back to Ravena to the dentist 
office where she frequently visited me. I became 
disgusted with the dentist business. The widow, 
as a present to help me on my way, gave me ten 
dollars, and that was the last I ever saw of her, 
but afterwards learned she got married. At the 
time I knew her she was the mother of seven chil- 
dren, six of whom were dead. After becoming 



42 The Life of a New England Boy 

disgusted with the idea of being a doctor of den- 
tistry, I decided that teaching was my forte, so 
after giving Dr. Spellman the watch, I left Ravena 
for the South. 



The Life of a New England Boy 43 



CHAPTER IV. 



Engaged in Teaching School. 

Then I went to Bowling Green, Ky. While on 
the boat down the Ohio River I met an elderly 
gentleman and his family, who lived in Kentucky. 
He took me to his wife and introduced me and 
told her I was a Yankee school teacher seeking a 
school down South. She said, "We will have him 
go along with us." I also met a young man and 
his mother on the boat who were broke. He asked 
me for the loan of some money. I told him I had 
but little money. He said that he and his mother 
were going to a little town further down on the 
river, and when they got there they would have 
plenty of money. I let him have ten dollars and 
he told me that he would meet me at a certain 
point down the river and pay me the money. I 
stopped off from the steamer at a place called 
Wellsville, Ohio, for the purpose of looking for a 
school there. I found no school ; the next day I 



44 The Life of a New England Boy 

took the boat again, and went down the river to 
the point where this young man I had loaned the 
money to was to meet me. When I arrived there 
I learned that he lived in another little town, four 
miles from the river. Then I had to walk four 
miles to see him; I found him. He paid me back 
the ten dollars, and I walked back to the river 
four miles, and thus I lost a day, and walked eight 
miles, and this was all the pay I got for loaning 
him ten dollars. I took the steamer and went on 
down to Cincinnati; I crossed over to Covington, 
Ky., and took the cars for Bowling Green, Ky. I 
stopped there a day or two and then started out 
into the country to hunt for a school. I went to 
this man's house whom I had met on the boat. 
They were glad to see me and told me that their 
house should be my home as long as I should stay. 
He loaned me a horse and I rode ten miles to the 
town of Middleton, where I found a man by the 
name of Patterson who wanted an assistant in a 
private school. I engaged with him to teach the 
Latin and Greek classes for $30 a month and 
board. While teaching there I became very popu- 
lar, but the salary was so small that I was not sat- 
isfied. After a few months teaching there I met 



The Life of a New England B-oy 45 

a young man by the name of Sanborn who had 
just come from Columbus, Ga., and was a teacher. 
He was a Northern man, had gone down South 
for the purpose of teaching. He became dissatis- 
fied because of the heat and came up to Kentucky 
where I was. He reported that there were schools 
down there where I could get more wages. I made 
arrangements with him to take my place in Mr. 
Patterson's school to teach the languages, and I 
left for the South. While in this school I had be- 
come very popular, by taking an interest in the 
Sabbath school, because I exhibited my ability as 
a teacher. I was invited by the pastor of the 
church there to preach one Sunday, which I 
politely declined to do. When they found I was 
to leave they made me a present of a very nice 
book called ".Work on Geology," which I have 
among my precious relics to this day. I took the 
boat and went down the Ohio River to Louisville, 
Ky. I went up the Columbia Eiver to Nashville, 
Tenn., and changed cars for Chattanooga, Tenn. 
Thence I went on to Atlanta, Ga., and then to 
Columbus, Ga. As I arrived in Columbus, Ga., 
the city was swarming with people. I asked the 
occasion of so many people in town. They told me 



46 The Life of a New England Boy 

that two men were to be hung. I went to the scene 
of the gallows and there saw two men hung. I 
then went back to the hotel and left my trunk with 
instructions to forward it when they received 
notice, and started out for Cuthbert, Gra., about 
fifty miles away, seeking a school, as I had not 
money to pay my fare. I walked part of the way 
and rode whenever I could get a chance on wagons. 
I arrived at Cuthbert two days afterwards, but 
had not found any school. I went to the hotel and 
got dinner. I paid the landlord fifty cents for my 
dinner. I then asked him if he could tell me where 
I could find a school. After thinking a moment he 
said there was a place seven miles out where they 
wanted a school teacher. I started out and ar- 
rived there at about six o'clock in the evening. 
The next morning he charged me seventy-five cents 
for my supper and lodging and breakfast. I paid 
him and had left fifty cents more. The only money 
I had in the world. I was three thousand miles 
away from home. That evening I told him my 
excuse for being there. I said I wanted a school. 
He said they had just employed a teacher, but that 
eight miles away they wanted a teacher. He told 
me to go to Maj. Goneka. When I arrived at Maj. 



The Life of a New England Boy 47 

Goneka's house I found it an old plantation log 
house. He was sitting on the piazza. As I walked 
up to the door he arose and came forward and 
took me in his arms, as it were, and with an out- 
stretched hand, he said, ' ' You are a Yankee, and a 
school teacher." I said, "Yes I'm a Yankee and a 
school teacher." He replied, "You are just the 
man I want; come in and sit down." We talked 
the matter over and he said, "We will have dinner 
and go out and see if we can make up a school," 
as there were no other kind of school south of 
the Mason and Dixy lines, except private schools. 
After dinner he put me on a horse (I was not 
accustomed to riding horse-back), and we went 
out and made up a school of twenty-six scholars, 
but he had no school-house suitable, but there was 
a house one mile away at the cross-roads which 
was vacant, and it had been a rendezvous for 
goats, which we could get. They sent their negroes 
and cleaned up the house. But we needed benches 
and desks. They told me they would send me 
lumber and negro carpenters and I could superin- 
tend the making of desks. They did it, and I made 
the desks, and on the fifth of January, 1859, fol- 
lowing, I appointed a day for opening the school. 



48 The Life of a New England Boy 

Early that January morning I opened school. As 
I came up to the school-house I saw awaiting my 
arrival on the outside of the school-house door 
several of my patrons of the school and sixteen 
scholars, eight of whom could count a hundred 
and eight could not. I rang the first school bell 
ever rung in that neighborhood, and called the 
school to order. I commenced the usual operation 
of taking the names of the scholars, assigned the 
lessons of those who were big enough to study, and 
commenced teaching. As usual I soon became 
very popular. I had won the confidence of the 
people. I taught school six months and gave an 
exhibition at its close. I then had forty-nine 
students. My exhibition called people from all 
around, and it filled the church where we had the 
exhibition, and we had a grand time, and we were 
to have a vacation of two months of the summer. 
During my first vacation I went North to get mar- 
ried. 



The Life of a New England Boy 49 



CHAPTER V. 

Got Marbied. 

Believing it to be the duty of every man after 
arriving at mature years to marry, at the age of 
twenty-four years I went North, where I had left 
my sweetheart two years and half before, the one 
out of the same group that had so interested me 
when we first met, six years ago. We were mar- 
ried at her home in West Sandwich, Mass., now 
.called Sagmore, at two o'clock in the afternoon, 
the sixth day of August, 1859, and took the cars 
for New York City. Then we took the steamer 
for Savannah, Ga. We were seasick on the way 
for a day or two, but we recovered ourselves 
shortly. When we arrived at Savannah, Ga., we 
took the cars for Cuthbert, Ga. When we arrived 
there we took a carriage for Springvale Institute, 
where my school was. I named my school Spring- 
vale Institute, which name remains to this day. 
The place bore the name Springvale after my 



50 The Life of a New England Boy 

school, and has become quite a town. There are 
two railroads there now. We were received with 
much eclat. The people turned out and gave us a 
warm reception, because a bride and groom had 
arrived. I received congratulations on every side, 
because I had succeeded in marrying such a beau- 
tiful wife During my trip North I met a lady, by 
name Miss Leavett, who lived in Meredith Village, 
New Hampshire, who came south as a teacher of 
music. When she arrived there on September 
following she was very much disgusted to think 
she had come three thousand miles to teach music 
to scholars who lived in the woods. But she bore 
up under it and taught there successfully for a 
year. 



The Life of a New England Boy 51 



CHAPTER VI. 



Teaching Continued. 

On September 1, 1859, the fall term of school 
opened. I had seventy-five pupils. In the mean- 
time while I was gone North to get married, the 
neighborhood had built me a fine school-house 
costing two thousand dollars, which sum was made 
up by subscription. It was a two-story building, 
and had three school rooms. The downstairs room 
was used for morning devotions and music, the 
upstairs was used for teaching the classes. The 
people were so interested in the school that they 
would send their children at seven o'clock in the 
morning. I opened my school at eight o'clock and 
taught until five o'clock in the evening, with one 
hour recess at noon. My work was so hard that I 
was reduced to almost a skeleton, and Miss Leavett 
said never was a teacher so worked as I was. But 
I had to have a house to live in, and that fall I 
built me a dwelling, the only house in the Spring- 



52 The Life of a New England Boy 

vale Institute district, excepting the school-house, 
so I built the first house in the town of Springvale. 
So I am the founder of the town of Springvale. 
There was nothing unusual happened the first year 
of school. At the close of the first year Miss 
Leavett closed her work with me and went North, 
and I was left at the opening of the civil war to 
battle with my Yankeesim. I was a Yankee, and 
they all knew it. Although I had shown no 
proclivities against slavery, all who knew me be- 
came attached to me. But when the war broke 
out every Yankee had to show his hand. But I 
had a family now, and all I had in the world was 
invested there, and I could not get away. Al- 
though I was a Northern man, after seeing the 
workings of slavery for about a year, I had be- 
come convinced that slavery was not so bad as it 
had been represented to me, and I fell in with it. 
While the people were investigating me as to my 
ideas of slavery, the bone of contention, there 
were some who did not know me who were for 
driving me out of the country, but those who knew 
me stood by me. During a meeting of the citizens 
who met to investigate me, was v present one of my 
friends, James Foster. He said he had a gun that 



The Life of a New England Boy 53 

would shoot seven times and if anybody touched 
me he would shoot it at them seven times. So he 
sent for his carriage and brought me and my 
family to his house where I remained two weeks 
in seclusion until the excitement had abated. I 
then volunteered as a soldier in the Southern army 
and went to the front. My company, the Quitman 
Greys, went on the cars to Strausberg, Va., where 
we took our first tramp for Winchester, Va. On 
my way from Strausberg to Winchester, when 
about half way, I fell with a sunstroke. The whole 
regiment halted for an hour and gathered around 
me. It was decided by Col. Geary and officers 
that I should remain by the wayside while the 
regiment passed on. Two young men who were 
pupils of mine in my school at home, by the name 
of Phillips, were detailed to wait on me. I was 
taken to a wayside inn and stayed there three 
days. One of the days was Sunday, the Battle of 
Bull Run. We were in the church and heard the 
rattle of the musketry. After three days I suf- 
ficiently recovered to join my regiment. We got 
a team and drove on to Winchester where we 
learned that the day before my regiment had been 
ordered to Bull Run. We got on a freight car and 



54 The Life of a New England Boy 

went to Bull Bun where I joined my regiment that 
was camped in a swamp. We soon moved out on 
the higher land, where I remained in my tent sev- 
eral days, and I being a feeble man, together with 
the effects of the sunstroke prevented me from 
being a soldier, and I was honorably discharged 
and sent home. On this trip I never saw an army 
and never heard a gun fired. When I arrived 
home I was sick. I was met at the station by sev- 
eral of my people and taken to their home in a 
carriage. I then sent for my family. I remained 
at the house of Mr. Thompson several days. In 
the meantime, while I was away as a soldier, Maj. 
Goneka, who was incapable to be a soldier on ac- 
count of poor health, had moved to my house with 
his family. I was taken from Mr. Thompson's 
house with my family to my house and boarded 
with Maj. Goneka for a few weeks. Salt had be- 
come a great scarcity, and I told Maj. Goneka 
that if he would furnish me with a pair of mules 
and wagon I would go to Florida and get a load 
of salt for his family and mine. He accepted my 
proposition and T started for Florida, one hundred 
miles away, where they were making salt from sea 
water. I got a load of salt and took it home and 



The Life of a New England Boy 55 

gave Maj. Goneka his share. So scarce was 
everything in the country that I had no sacks to put 
my salt in, so I took up my carpet and made it into 
sacks to hold the salt; so that after that during 
the war I had no carpets for my floor. I sold some 
of my salt for one hundred dollars per sack in 
confederate money. After boarding with Maj. 
Goneka for three weeks I went over to live in a 
one-room log house in a sweet potato patch, full 
of nice sweet potatoes which I was permitted by 
Maj. Goneka to use. After I had sold my house I 
went over Pataula Creek and took another school. 
I lived in a two-room log house. The war was on 
us, the people had no money to pay me for tuition, 
and I took corn and pork for my tuition. I taught 
school there for one year and then moved to a 
place called Bethel, eight miles away, and opened 
up a school, which I taught until the close of the 
war. During the war I had to do something else 
besides teaching school for a living, so I rented 
some land and hired negroes to cultivate it. I was 
in this condition when the war closed. After the 
war closed I received a letter from a man who had 
been a captured rebel in a Northern prison, and 
being benefited by my wife's sister, Mrs. Rebecca 



56 The Life of a New England Boy , 

Burgess, who sent food and clothing to the prison- 
ers, she found that he was going home, and lived 
within fifty miles of her sister, and she had her 
father to entrust him with money for her sister. 
After arriving at his home he sent me word he 
had fifty dollars in greenbacks which was given 
him by my wife's father to take home and give to 
me. I rode fifty miles on horse-back to get the 
money. I got the money and with it bought tickets 
to Boston, Mass., for my wife and children by the 
way of the West. It took them eight days to 
reach Boston. Then at Boston they had to buy 
another ticket for West Sandwich. 

I was left alone in Georgia. I got a private 
school four miles away, supported by Amus 
Ward. He gave me one hundred dollars per month 
and board in greenbacks for teaching the school. 
He invited all the neighbors' children around to 
go to the school. I taught there about three 
months and became desirous of going home; 
I sold my house and lot in Bethel for about 
six hundred dollars in greenbacks and gathered 
together what money I could from those whom I 
had taught, which amounted to about twelve hun- 
dred dollars. I took this money to a Mr. Morris, 



The Life of a New England Boy 57 

a particular friend of mine who was a dealer in 
cotton. He sold me twelve hundred dollars worth 
of cotton. The cotton was already shipped and 
on its way to New York. He gave me a bill of 
laden and I started for New York City. On my 
way . I visited my brother William who lived in 
Almira, New York and from there I went on to 
Cape Cod, where I found my family at her 
father's. After staying there a few days I went 
back to Almjira, New York, where my brother was 
and bought out a half interest in his restaurant. 
After I had been there a few days word came to 
me that Mr. Morris, from whom I had bought the 
cotton, was in New York City. I took the first 
train for New York City and arrived there in the 
morning, and went to the hotel where he was stop- 
ping, and registered. I ask the clerk if Mr. Morris 
was there and he said "Yes, he is in the dining- 
room." The first person I saw was Mr. Morris 
sitting at a table, eating. I did not make myself 
known to him then, but took a seat back of him. 
He finished his breakfast before I did and went 
into the office. I soon followed him and at the desk 
I said "Good morning, Mr. Morris.' ' He turned 
and recognized me and was very glad to meet me 



58 The Life of a New England Boy 

and said, "Let us go to my room." We went to 
his room and talked matters over. The cotton had 
not yet arrived and I told him I needed the money. 
He figured up what the cottoji would be worth 
when it arrived. It amounted to about twelve hun- 
dred dollars which he paid me. We then went out 
on the street, and in passing by a jewelry shop, he 
said, "Let us go in." We went in and he said, 
"Now pick out a watch." I picked out a cheap 
watch and the price was fifteen dollars, which he 
paid and handed it to me and said, ' ' This is for you 
to remember me by, as we shall probably never 
meet again." We parted and we have never met 
since, but I have learned he became very wealthy 
as a cotton dealer. 



The Life of a New England Boy 59 



CHAPTER VII. 



Went Into the Restaurant Business With My 
Brother in Almira, New York, and Other 
Changes. 

I sent for my family who stopped with my wife's 
father in West Sandwich since their return from 
the South. We rented rooms in Almira, New 
York, and lived there. I soon learned that the 
restaurant business was not sufficient to support 
two, so I sold out my interest to my brother, sent 
my family back to her father's in West Sandwich 
and left again for the South. I went to Mobile, 
Ala,, where I had an uncle living by the name of 
Smith. I stopped with him a few days, but could 
find nothing to do to earn any money in Mobile. I 
took the steamer for New Orleans and then took 
another steamer for Galveston, Texas. I took the 
stage for the interior of Texas. While in Mobile 
I changed my money from greenbacks to gold, 
which amounted to about six hundred dollars. 



60 The Life of a New England Boy 

Having arrived in Texas I found the country so 
vast, and it required a good deal of money to en- 
gage in the cattle business, for which I went 
there. After staying there a few weeks I decided 
it was best for me, not having much money, to go 
back to New England. I then started on my long 
journey home. Before going to West Sandwich, 
Mass., when I arrived in Boston I went to Man- 
chester, New Hampshire, where I had a sister liv- 
ing. Her husband was an overseer in a cotton 
mill. I told him I wanted work. He took me to 
the mill and I was given a position in the mill at 
a dollar and twenty-five cents a day and boarded 
myself. I left the job because it did not pay me, 
and went up town and bought a few things to sell. 
I started out to sell these things and found that 
they netted me so little profit that I could not 
afford to continue. In the meantime my wife had 
come from West Sandwich, where I had sent for 
her, and we decided that it was best for us to go 
back to West Sandwich where I could get the posi- 
tion as principal of the High School at Monument 
for sixty-five dollars per month and board myself, 
four miles away from West Sandwich. I went up 
on the cars in the morning and returned in the 



The Life, of a New England Boy 61 

evening. While teaching there Thomas Eli, pre- 
siding elder of the Methodist Church, invited me 
to go to West Falmouth and supply the church as 
a preacher. This place was twelve miles from 
Monument, and was reached only by stage. I went 
up on Saturday by stage, preached two sermons 
on Sunday and attended the Sabbath school, and 
returned on Monday to my school, opening at nine 
o'clock. I taught school through the week and 
repeated the transaction every week for three 
years. I was very popular as a young preacher. 
The High School was a rotation school as well, and 
was held at Sandwich, Mass., one-half of the time, 
so I taught at Monument one-half of the time and 
at Sandwich the other half. 



62 The Life of a New England Boy 



CHAPTEE VIII. 



Engaged in the Life Insukance Business. 

While teaching school at Monument there came 
to me a life insurance agent. He presented the 
subject with such glowing colors that I became 
interested^ but told him that I was not able to pay 
the premium on any insurance policy. He sug- 
gested that he make me an agent and that I could 
insure other people, and thereby receive money 
from commissions to pay my own premium. He 
insured me for two thousand dollars on a twenty- 
year endowment, which I never received, because 
the company failed. I was theft thirty-four years 
of age and the policy would be paid to me at fifty- 
four. I started out then during my leisure time 
to canvass for insurance. I was very successful 
and got many applications for policies. !So much 
so that I interested the branch office, located at 
Boston, and they sent for me to come to the office 
and offered to pay my expenses. I went and we 



The Life of a New England Boy 63 

made an arrangement whereby I should receive 
one thousand dollars per year and expenses. But 
what should I do with my school and church that I 
was pastor of? They told me to get another 
teacher, but I could preach on Sundays as usual. 
I went to Dartmouth College, N. H., and engaged 
a teacher to succeed me. I then went to work as a 
life insurance agent. I was so successful in getting 
applications for policies that they sent for me to 
come to the office again. When there I made an- 
other arrangement whereby I should receive two 
thousand dollars a year and expenses, and preach 
at the same time on Sundays. I was sent to New 
Bedford and took an office there. After working 
about two years they wanted me to go to Vermont. 
I gave up my ministry and went to Rutland, Vt., 
and took an office. My business was to travel all 
over the State and appoint agents for life insur- 
ance as I had been so successful in appointing suc- 
cessful agents in other places. After working for 
a year or so with office at Rutland, it was found 
more convenient for me to locate at Burlington, 
Vermont. My salary was raised from two thou- 
sand to three thousand dollars and expenses. I 
located at Burlington, Vermont, and decided I 



64 The Life of a New England Boy 

wanted my family with me, but had to have a house 
to live in. I bought lots and engaged a contractor 
to build me a house of seven rooms that would 
cost thirty-two hundred dollars. The house was 
located on Union Street in sight of Lake Cham- 
plain where we had a beautiful view of steamers 
passing and repassing. Having built my new home 
I sent for my family, who were living at West 
Sandwich, and moved to Burlington, Vermont, to 
my new home. After working about a year my 
success as a life insurance agent began to fail, be- 
cause there were so many men in the business. 
Almost every man I would meet was a life insur- 
ance agent. All the preachers and school teachers 
and business men went into the business. I became 
disgusted and gave up my salary of three thou- 
sand dollars, which had under contract one year 
longer to run, because I could not earn my salary. 
I then met Mr. Holland, who was a prominent 
publisher of the Bible. I engaged with him to sell 
his Bible for five dollars a day and expenses. I 
canvassed for the Bible about one month, but met 
with no success. I gave up the job. There came 
to me at that time a man by name of Joseph Inhoff 
from Lincoln, Nebraska, who was a land agent 



The Life of a New England Boy 65 

from Nebraska. I engaged with liim as a partner 
to sell lands. We sold some land in Burlington at 
a good profit, but lie had to go home to Lincoln, 
Nebraska, and insisted I should visit Lincoln in 
the near future to see the country. I went, and on 
my way, I was so pleased with the rolling prairies 
that I wrote back home saying it was not in the 
power of tongue or pen to describe the beauties 
of that country. Lincoln, the capital of the State, 
had about two thousand inhabitants. Lincoln is 
located in a little valley and as I stood upon the 
streets one day talking with some gentleman, I 
was enthused at the' prospects that surrounded me. 
I said that I expect to live to see the day when the 
city would spread out and fill the horizon of the 
valley, which was six miles away on each side. My 
prophecy has been literally fulfilled, for that coun- 
try has been nearly covered with houses. 



66 The Life of a New England Boy 



CHAPTEE IX. 

Engaged in Fakming. 

I bought a six hundred and forty-acre farm in 
Otoe County, Nebraska, from the railroad com- 
pany at eight dollars per acre. I built a house 
and barn on it, and went to Burlington, Vermont, 
for my family. While traveling to Otoe County at 
St. Albans I was robbed of my pocket-book and 
tickets. While going into the car I was met by two 
or three persons who crowded me very hard. I 
said "do not hurry, gentlemen, there is plenty of 
time. ' ' Then they left me. After going into the car 
and the car had started I found I was robbed. 
Everything was done to catch the robbers, without 
success. I then had to buy new tickets and lost 
my pocket-book containing fifty dollars. On ar- 
riving in Otoe County with my family I broke up 
one hundred acres of prairie land and planted it 
in sod corn. I made a good crop of sod corn. I 
bought one hundred and twenty-six head of Texas 



The Life of a New England Boy 67 

steers and hired a boy to herd them on my farm. 
I cnt one hundred tons of prairie hay and stacked 
it aronnd my coral. I gathered my corn which 
made about twelve thousand bushels. I had also 
a lot of hogs that run with the cattle. I fed them 
hay and corn during the winter. The weather was 
so cold at times that it killed the weaker ones, so 
that I in the spring, in place of a hundred and 
twenty-six, had a hundred that were spring poor. 
I herded them out on my farm again until fall. 
When I found they were eating their heads off, I 
arranged with Gov. Buttler to take them to Chi- 
cago and sell them. He also marketed my hogs. T 
found by this experience that I was not a farmer, 
so I rented the place and moved with my family 
to Lincoln, Nebraska, eighteen miles away. I 
there bought a half interest of C. M. Parker in 
the hardware business. I obtained the money to 
do this by borrowing eight hundred dollars from 
a Mr. Ogden, and gave him as security my one 
hundred and ten acres of land. I lost this and the 
one hundred and ten acres when the store was 
closed up. I rented my house, but built another 
one costing me eleven hundred dollars on a lot on 
which was a mortgage of four hundred and fifty 



68 The Life of a New England Boy 

dollars. We had but poor success in our business 
and the business very much declined. About this 
time there was a new county formed thirty miles 
away which had for its county seat a town by the 
name of David City, where we opened up a branch 
store, and it was decided that I should go there 
and run the store while Mr. Parker run the home 
store in Lincoln. Our business continued to de- 
cline, and we soon found that we could not pay our 
bills so we were closed up by our creditors in 
Chicago. After we had been closed up a few weeks 
we managed to raise sufficient money to pay off 
the debts, and opened up again. We run the store 
about one year longer and again closed up for want 
of money to pay our bills. I then moved the goods 
in my store, David City to Lincoln, Nebraska, 
where I sold out my interest in the store to Mr. 
Parker, and all I received for my share was a re- 
ceipt in full from him, which was eighteen hundred 
dollars which I had put in the store. I lost it all 
and four years time, except I had enough out of 
it to support my family, and that he would pay 
the debts. He run the store a few months and 
closed it up. 



The Life of a New England Boy 69 



CHAPTEE X. 



Canvassing, Ice Cream and Eeal Estate Business. 

After I had gone out of the store I was out of 
business. I tried various means for a livelihood, 
but found nothing until I struck a man who wanted 
me to go to Kansas to canvass for the enlargement 
of pictures. I went and successfully canvassed for 
the enlargement of pictures. After a few months' 
work in that line I had saved up a few dollars and 
bought a stereopticon which I exhibited through 
the country until I became disgusted with my poor 
success. I then received a letter from home from 
Lillian, my youngest daughter, who said that her 
mother was sick and that I must come home. I 
went home and found her health much improved. 
After staying at home a few weeks I went to 
Omaha, Neb., where I canvassed for books. After 
canvassing a few weeks I became disgusted with 
my poor success and went home again. After look- 
ing about for something else to do I met a man 



70 The Life of a New England Boy 

by the name of Small who had an ice cream parlor. 
I went into his place of business and asked him if 
he would sell out. He replied that he would and 
that his price was two hundred and eighty dollars. 
I told him that I had but two hundred dollars. I 
had saved this in my canvassing. He said that I 
could give him two hundred dollars and pay the 
eighty dollars out of the earnings of the parlor. 
In the meantime, while I was canvassing, my wife 
had supported the family by keeping boarders in 
a house I had built, and put the title in her name 
on which there was a mortgage of four hundred 
and fifty dollars. I then took charge of the ice 
cream parlor. Mr. Small made the ice cream and 
I sold quite a good deal of cream and cake. I was 
alone and did all the work, but on the eleventh day 
of August there came Barnum's Circus to Lincoln. 
His circus was world-wide in reputation and drew 
a large crowd. The railroads that centered in 
Lincoln brought in great crowds of people from 
everywhere, so that they filled the town full of 
people, so much so that by twelve o'clock there was 
not a thing to eat in town. People flocked to my 
ice cream parlor for something to eat. I could 
give them nothing but ice cream. Among those 



The Life of a New England Boy 71 

who came was a lady from Topeka, Kansas, who 
had just arrived on the train. She came into the 
parlor and asked for something to eat. I told her 
I could give her nothing but ice cream. She said 
that was better than nothing and took a seat and 
ate her ice cream. Then she came to the counter 
where I was cashier and paid her bill. She then 
asked me if I could tell her where she could get a 
room. As the town seemed to be full of people, I 
told her that my wife was keeping a boarding- 
house and that I thought that she could get a room 
there. She gave her name as Mrs. Carrie S. Tufts. 
She got a room at my wife's. The next morning 
I found on counting up my cash that I had taken 
in one-hundred and twenty-six dollars and a half. 
I had sold sixty gallons of ice cream and some 
cake. I paid Mr. Small sixty dollars for the cream. 
The next morning at the breakfast table Mrs. 
Tufts asked me if I could tell her where she could 
get something to do. I asked her what could she 
do and she said she had worked in an ice cream 
parlor and had worked in a restaurant and a mil- 
liner's store and was handy at most anything. I 
told her I needed a lady in my ice cream parlor and 
she said she would accept a position there. We 



72 The Life of a New England Boy 

went down to the parlor she commenced her work, 
and she worked for me in ice cream parlors and 
rooming-houses for twenty-one years and died in 
the bath-tub asphyxiated by the gas. She was 
of such splendid help that I could not get along 
without her. I run the ice cream parlor until the 
cold weather set in and then converted it into a 
restaurant. I made seventeen hundred dollars 
within one year. Then I built an addition to my 
house of seventeen rooms and made it a hotel 
which I called the Central House. I sold out my 
restaurant and went there to run the hotel. After 
running the house about two years I rented it for 
about fifty dollars per month and I went to live 
in the next house which I had bought beside this 
house; that I had bought was a small Swedish 
Church on the corner. I bought this church, raised 
up the roof and made a two-story building of it. 
Downstairs I had made into a store and upstairs 
were rooms for renting. Between this house and 
the one I had bought was twelve feet space on 
which I built another story and put rooms above. 
I built on the rear of the store a one-story dress- 
making store. I then built in front of the first 
building I had bought there, four rooms, two up- 



The Life of a New England Boy 73 

stairs and two downstairs on the same lot on which 
the hotel was. I built another house two stories 
high on the alley side. I built a house two stories 
high and a basement consisting of fourteen rooms 
apart of which I occupied and rented the balance. 
I then had a hotel, a dwelling house, three stores 
and twenty rooms. At that time an excursion was 
formed to go to California. Mrs. Tufts had gone 
to California the spring before. The excursion 
which we joined stopped at Sacramento, where we 
found Mrs. Tufts. In a few days we went on to San 
Francisco, where I bought a restaurant for Mrs. 
Tufts. After spending the winter in San Fran- 
cisco until March my wife and I left Mrs. Tufts 
in San Francisco and started home East. We went 
to San Jose where we stopped a few days and then 
we went on to Fresno, Cal. I negotiated to buy a 
vineyard and sixteen lots in the City of Fresno 
from S. H. Cole, a real estate dealer, but did not 
consummate the trade. We then went on to Los 
Angeles, where we remained about a week, and 
finding property so high I did not buy anything. 
They took me out four or five miles from the city 
and showed me land that stood upright for which 
they wanted six hundred and fifty dollars an acre. 



74 The Life of a New England Boy 

I asked them what I could do with such land to 
make any money. They said, "Baise the price 
and sell it." The land was afterward sold for 
seven hundred dollars. In the meantime I had 
numerous offers for my property in Lincoln, all of 
which I turned down. We then went on to Lincoln, 
our home. As soon as I arrived in Lincoln, real 
estate men flocked around me and wanted to buy 
my place there. After much conversation I sold 
it to the Y. M. C. A. folks who wanted it to build 
a fine Y. M. CLA. building on it. I received for 
what cost me twelve thousand dollars, forty-five 
thousand dollars. It was said to be the best sale 
ever made in Lincoln up to that time. The cause 
of the sale was I donated fifteen hundred dollars 
tp the Y. M. C. A. I received twenty thousand 
dollars in cash and the balance in notes, with mort- 
gage for the balance to run two years at eight per 
cent interest. I then went to Beatrice, Nebraska, 
and bought a farm of one hundred and twenty 
acres, right across the Blue Eiver in view of the 
city, for which I paid nineteen thousand and five 
hundred dollars. I surveyed this into lots and put 
it on the market for sale, but met with poor suc- 
cess, because I placed the price of the lots too 



The Life of a New England Boy 75 

high, which was two hundred and fifty apiece. I 
then went to Lincoln and made arrangements to 
return to Fresno, Cal. On arriving in Fresno I 
bought the sixteen lots for which I had arranged 
before I went East, for which I paid twenty-five 
hundred dollars, and in a few weeks I sold them 
for sixty-four hundred dollars, making a fine 
speculation. I then bought two hundred acres on 
Blackstone Avenue, two miles north of the city, 
which was then a barley field. I negotiated with 
Thomas E. Hughes to buy five lots on the corner 
of Tulare and J Streets for twenty-five thousand 
dollars, and then went East. While East I com- 
pleted the sale and sent Thomas E. Hughes ten 
thousand dollars and a mortgage back for fifteen 
thousand dollars. 

I went East that season because I had promised 
Myrtie (Lillian), my youngest daughter, that I 
would go East to our old home in West Sandwich, 
Mass. After visiting my wife's people we went to 
New Hampshire, where we visited New Hampton 
school from which I had graduated years before. 
After visiting our relatives there a few weeks we 
returned to our Lincoln home, where I arranged 
to move my family to Fresno, Cal. While they 



76 The Life of a New England Boy 

remained in Lincoln I went to Fresno and built a 
house and barn on the two hundred acres I had 
bought there. In about three months my family 
came on from Lincoln, Nebraska, and took pos- 
session of the new home I had built on the two 
hundred acres. In the meantime I was engaged 
in the real estate business with two gentlemen 
partners by the name of Harvy and Thomas. The 
firm's name was Harvy, Thomas and Edgerly, 
located under the Grand Central Hotel. Among 
other things we did, we bought one hundred and 
twenty acres of wheat land, which we called Bel- 
mont addition to Fresno for which we paid eigh- 
teen thousand and five hundred dollars. We sur- 
veyed the land into lots and put it on the market 
for sale which sold very rapidly, so that in three 
months time we had sold all of it, excepting three 
blocks which we reserved a block each for each 
member of the firm. Mr. Harvy and Thomas sold 
theirs very soon and I kept my block and did not 
sell it all for fifteen years. This addition has now 
become a prominent part of the city. 



The Life of a New England Boy 77 



CHAPTER XL 



Built the Edgekly Block. 

After a few weeks I went to Dry Creek on Black- 
stone Avenue, where I bought five acres of clay 
land for which I paid three thousand dollars to 
make brick on. Having made the brick, one million 
in number, I hauled them to Fresno and built the 
Edgerly Block, a building which is one hundred 
and fifty feet long and seventy feet wide and three 
stories high. I bought the pressed brick for the 
front in San Francisco, which cost me twelve and 
a half cents apiece when laid in the wall. The 
whole building proper cost me fifty-three thousand 
dollars. It was then considered one of the finest 
buildings in Fresno. I had bought various pieces 
of land, for which I paid part cash and gave mort- 
gage for the balance. In all of my dealings in 
real estate during this time I had given mortgages 
to the amount of sixty-six thousand dollars. Prop- 
erty began to decline and I could sell nothing; 




THE EDGERLY BLOCK, FRESNO 



The Life of a New England Boy 79 

rents went down and I soon found myself badly 
handicapped. The Fresno National Bank was 
carrying me for ten thousand dollars with no 
security but my note. The president, H. D. Col- 
som, told me one day when I went to pay my in- 
terest that he wished he had a hundred customers 
just like me, because he had no trouble in collect- 
ing the interest. In the meantime I sent for my son 
in Kansas, who was herding sheep, to come to 
California and work for me. He came and, with 
my younger son, planted my two hundred-acre 
farm north of town into a Muscat vineyard. While 
visiting in San Francisco during the summer I 
received a letter from the Eepublican office asking 
me to add a press-room in the rear of the Edgerly 
Block. I did so and that remained there successful- 
ly for fourteen years, our only morning paper for 
Fresno. There came a time when it was necessary 
for the Government to move the Postoffice. It was 
then in a building on the corner of Fresno and J 
streets. After much wrangling between the citizens 
of North and South Fresno I succeeded in locating 
the Postoffice in the Edgerly Block. I received 
numerous letters from the citizens on the north 
side of town asking me to place a price on my 



80 The Life of a New England Boy 

building; that is, I was to sell out the southern 
side to them. I placed a price on my building at 
one hundred thousand dollars. I was to receive 
twenty-five thousand dollars cash and was to take 
a mortgage of seventy-five thousand dollars. If 
they secured the Postoffice I was to buy my build- 
ing back and give them the seventy-five thousand 
dollars mortgage back. Thus I was to make in 
my transaction twenty-five thousand dollars, but 
they could not raise the money and the project 
fell through, so the Postoffice was located in my 
building on the corner of J and Tulare streets. 
The Postoffice took two stores. I was to donate 
the rent of one store and the citizens agreed to 
pay the rent of the. other store. I received a few 
dollars from the people for the rent of that store 
and the rent stopped, excepting Dr. Rowell's. I 
was then paying for the rent of two stores. In the 
meantime the Republican Office needed more room 
so I built a one-story building forty feet wide and 
sixty feet long in front of the press-room, which 
led out to J Street, as editorial and composing- 
rooms, which they occupied until they built a five- 
story brick building on the corner of Tulare and J 
streets, opposite the New Postoffice, which they 



The Life of a New England Boy 81 

are occupying to this day. The Postoffice re- 
mained in the Edgerly Block about fifteen years, 
or until the Government built a public Postoffice 
on the corner of Tulare and J streets, where the 
Postoffice now is. 



82 The Life of a New England Boy 



CHAPTEE XII. 



The Boom Bkoke. 

After the boom broke and my notes began to fall 
due, I could not pay the interest, and let some of 
my property go to pay the mortgages, but I still 
held on to my two hundred-acre vineyard and the 
Edgerly Block. The property I had back in Beat- 
rice was sold at a smaller price than I paid for it, 
so I lost money in that speculation. There was a 
mortgage on the Edgerly Block for thirty-five 
thousand dollars and another mortgage on the 
vineyard for ten thousand dollars. I saw a notice 
in the San Francisco paper that a party there had 
property that they would exchange for city prop- 
erty. I wrote to this party asking for an explana- 
tion, and told them what I had. He came down, 
and after looking over the Edgerly Block, he told 
me that he had an eleven hundred-acre farm at 
Youtville, Napa County, Cal., that he would trade 
for the Edgerly Block. On this ranch there was a 



The Life of a New England Boy 83 

wine vineyard of three hundred and fifty acres 
of bearing vines and a brick wine cellar with three 
hundred and fifty thousand gallons of oak cooper- 
age in it, but the cooperage was empty. This 
winery was used to make and store wine in. It 
also had a distillery for distilling brandy; it also 
had a fine dwelling-house and brick barn located 
near the railroad station. The price of this ranch 
was a hundred and ten thousand dollars. The 
price of the Edgerly Block was a hundred and five 
thousand. The ranch was free of all incum- 
brances and I put a mortgage on the ranch for 
twenty thousand dollars, enough to pay the differ- 
ence in trade of five thousand and ten thousand 
to pay the bank and I had five thousand left to 
run the ranches with. I did not move to Napa 
County that year, but rented the ranch and wine 
cellar and lived in Fresno with my family. The 
next year I went to Napa County with my wife 
and run the ranch myself. I soon learned that I 
was not a wine man. I did not make enough that 
year to pay the interest on the mortgages. I be- 
came alarmed and feared J. K. Pryor of San 
Francisco, who held the mortgages, would fore- 
close on me, as he was reported to be a hard man. 



84 The Life of a New England Boy 

He had accumulated, he boasted, two million dol- 
lars by loaning money and taking advantages of 
parties who could not pay their interest. One day 
while he was visiting us, I knew him to be a wine 
man, and sat before him at dinner coffee, water 
and a bottle of wine. Instead of drinking the 
water he took up his glass and said, "I don't know 
what water was made for unless it was to wash a 
man's face with." He drank his wine. This 
shows to what extent a man may go to depreciate 
his appetite. There came along a man from 
Omaha, Nebraska, who claimed to have money and 
securities to buy the farm. I negotiated with him 
a few days before the interest became due. I sold 
him the farm and took his securities, which con- 
sisted of mortgages on real estate back in Omaha 
and Wyoming oil stock. The mortgages took the 
real estate and no companies with such oil stock 
were ever found. They proved to be wild-cat com- 
panies. I took the stock, two hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars par value, for which I paid 
twenty cents on the dollar, which amounted to fifty 
thousand dollars. The whole of these securities 
proved to be worthless, and I lost in the trade fifty 
thousand dollars. I have these stocks now. Mr. 



The Life of a New England Boy 85 

Piyor now owns and runs the ranch which cost 
him about thirty thousand dollars which he ob- 
tained by the laxity of California laws. 



86 The Life of a New England Boy 



CHAPTER XIII. 



Bunding Rooming Houses. 

During my last year's stay on the ranch in Napa 
I had accumulated two thousand dollars in gold 
which I took with me and went to Los Angeles. The 
first thing I did after I arrived there was to buy a 
restaurant for which I paid eight hundred and 
fifty dollars in gold. The man who sold me the 
restaurant said that he was going to Seattle to 
open up a restaurant. I went into the restaurant 
business, but soon learned that this man from 
whom I bought, instead of going to Seattle, just 
went around the corner and there opened up a 
restaurant, and took away all my trade. I soon 
found I could do no business in the restaurant so 
I traded it for a rooming-house on Second Street 
with thirty-six rooms. It was nicely furnished, but 
so far out that it failed to pay. I then traded that 
rooming-house for the Portland on Spring Street, 
Los Angeles, with thirty-six rooms, the rent of 



The Life of a New England Boy 87 

which was one hundred and seventy-five dollars 
per month. The rent being so great that it was 
impossible to pay expenses and make any money, 
I then sold the rooming-house to a party in Pasa- 
dena, who owned forty acres of washed land. The 
laiid proved to be worthless and I lost it all. Then 
I bought out a small bakery and run it a few 
weeks. Mrs. Tufts was with me and did the bak- 
ing, but the business was too small to make any 
money. I took the fixtures out of the bakery and 
sold them to a second-hand man and shook the 
dust off of my feet from Los Angeles, and with 
Mrs. Tufts and my wife went back to Fresno to 
live. We went to Mrs. Tufts' house to live in 
Fresno. After a few weeks I went to Oakland 
where I found a cheap lodging house of fifty-nine 
rooms located on Ninth Street between Broadway 
and Washington streets. I traded for this house 
and gave in exchange nineteen lots which I had 
saved out of my purchase in Youtville, Napa 
County, and three hundred dollars in money. I 
took possession of the house and soon found that 
I had purchased a house of ill-fame. I was dis- 
gusted with my purchase. I soon cleaned the 
house out and refitted it for business. The house 



88 The Life of a New England Boy 

being in a good location for business soon filled 
up with respectable people. When I had gotten 
the house in good condition I sent for my wife 
and Mrs. Tufts. I put Mrs. Tufts in charge as 
manager and we went on and made some money. 
After we had run the house for about three years I 
came to Fresno to look after the boys on the vine- 
yard. The first man I met on leaving the cars at 
Fresno was Thomas Dunn, who was about to erect 
the Dunn Block with stores below and rooming- 
house above. I bought it. I then had two rooming- 
houses ; one in Oakland. I went back to Oakland 
and sold out my house there, and moved to Fresno 
and took possession of the new house in the Dunn 
Block at Fresno. I named the new rooming-house 
Hotel Portland. I had previously bought the 
furniture in Oakland with which to furnish the 
new house, so that on the first day of May, 1901, 
I had the house nicely furnished and moved into 
it. I then leased the whole building for three 
years for three hundred and twenty-five dollars 
per month, and I paid the water bill. Mrs. Tufts 
run the house while I lived in rooms in the house. 
Mrs. Tufts told me when I came to California that 
I had some money now, and that I should do some- 



The Life of a New England Boy 89 

thing for her besides paying her wages, because 
she would be old by and by, and being a widow, 
she would have no support. She had then worked 
for me eight years, and had saved very little 
money. I looked around and found ten acres of 
land one-half a mile east of the Courthouse and 
had a house and barn on it and was planted in 
grape vines, pear trees and alfalfa. I bought this 
land and paid forty-five hundred dollars for it, 
paying one-fourth down and gave a mortgage for 
the balance. I told her that when she should pay 
for the land she should have a deed for it. ' ' But, ' ' 
said she, "I can never pay for the land." I said 
I am in the real estate business and I will survey 
the land into lots and put it on the market for sale, s 
It made eighty-four lots. The boom was on and I 
soon sold the twenty-four lots and realized money 
enough to pay for the full price of the land, com- 
missions and interests. Thus she had sixty lots 
left clear for her adventure, and I took sixty-three 
dollars in money and gave it to her as this was 
what was left her after paying for the land. She 
lived in the house and cultivated the land, and 
made enough money to make her a good living for 
a year or so, when she rented the place and went 



90 The Life of a New England Boy 

to the Edgerly Block and took charge of my room- 
ing-house there for years. When I sold out the 
Edgerly Block I had previously given her a lease 
of all the rooming-house for the small sum of 
seventy-five dollars per month. She run the house 
for two years and then sold it out to a second-hand 
man and went on her place to live awhile. In Sep- 
temper of 1901 while she was running the Port- 
land at Fresno she says to me one day in the 
afternoon, ' ' I 'm going to the bath-tub. ' ' She went 
and closed the windows and transom and lit the 
gas to heat the water for the bath-tub. In about 
a half an hour a gentleman rung the bell and asked 
to see Mrs. Tufts. I went to find her and thought 
the last time I saw her she was going to take a 
bath. I went to the bath-room door and found the 
door locked and rapped on the door, but no 
answer. I rapped again and still no answer. I 
became alarmed and rushed to the store-room, 
took a step ladder and looked over the transom 
and saw Mrs. Tufts in the bath-tub dead. I raised 
the alarm, and with my son Charley who was vis- 
iting me at that time, burst the bath-room door 
open, took her out of the bath tub in a nude state, 
and with the ladies there we worked over her for 



The Life of a New England Boy 91 

an hour, and sent for the doctor, but could not 
revive her as she was dead. We had a postmortem 
examination. She had left in her room instruc- 
tions that if anything happened to her to wire her 
brother who lived in Topeka, Kansas. I wired 
him and told him of her death and asked for in- 
structions. He wired back, "Hold the body and I 
will come." He came in about three days. We 
had the funeral and he took the body to San Fran- 
cisco and had it cremated, because she had made 
her will that she should be cremated for she feared 
all her life that she would be buried alive. She 
made her will giving her property to her brothers 
and sisters, as she had no other relations. They 
lived in Kansas, but all were dead at the time of 
her death excepting one brother, Mr. Martin, who 
never went back, but made Fresno his home where 
he now resides to this day. Thus ended the life 
of a most useful woman. 



92 The Life of a New England Boy 



CHAPTER XIV. 



Rooming-Houses Continued. 

I continued to run my Hotel Portland, where 
Mrs. Tufts died, and built it up to a high state. 
I had numerous housekeepers until I found one, 
a Mrs. Michael, who proved to be a very success- 
ful manager of a rooming-house. I kept her in 
my service about a year and a half, when Mr. 
Martin, a brother of Mrs. Tufts, came and set- 
tled up her estate. He brought his wife with him 
from Topeka, Kansas, and they stopped with us 
at the Hotel Portland. His wife was pleased with 
the house and he negotiated with me to buy the 
house and the furniture in the rooms. I put the 
price on it at three thousand dollars. One thou- 
sand was to be cash and the balance to be paid as 
the house earned it, about one hundred dollars per 
month at eight per cent interest. They took pos- 
session of the house with Mrs. Michael as man- 
ager. They soon fell out and she left him. In 



The Life of a New England Boy 93 

the meantime I went to the corner of M and Kern 
streets and bought four lots and a house for which 
I paid four thousand dollars. I built the Hotel 
Lincoln, a rooming-house of thirty-three rooms, 
and put Mrs. Micheal in there as manager. She 
took possession February 1, 1903. She run the 
house until September following, when she mar- 
ried a man by the name of Eohs and went to San 
Diego to live, where he bought a rooming-house, 
which they are running to this day. I sold the 
furniture in the Hotel Lincoln to Robert Nutting, 
a young married man, renting him the building for 
one hundred dollars per month. He run it three 
years and sold the furniture to a Mrs. Steel, who 
runs it to this day. In the fall of 1907 I built two 
flats of eleven rooms each, besides the Hotel Lin- 
coln, in one of which I now live. 




o 

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p 
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The Life of a New England Boy 95 



CHAPTER XV. 



Gave Up Business. 

After building my flats I had decided not to 
build any more houses. I went to Oakland with 
my wife and daughter Effie, where I had been 
several summers to spend the heated term. I 
was in poor health, and instead of getting better 
my health continued to decline. When the time 
came for me to go back to Fresno I decided I 
must go to work or die soon with inactivity. 
After arriving in Fresno I looked around for 
vacant lots. I found on the corner of and Tulare 
streets four lots which were vacant and for sale. 
I purchased one hundred feet square on the corner 
of and Tulare streets for six thousand and 
eight hundred dollars. I contracted with a Mr. 
Sweet to build me three houses, an apartment 
house of thirty-four rooms fronting on O Street 
and two flats fronting on Tulare Street, each flat 
was to have six apartment rooms and two stores. 




VIEW OF MRS. N. E. D. WHEELER'S HOME 



The Life of a New England Boy 97 

While I was building these flats there came a man 
who talked to me about renting one of the stores. 
After much talk he asked me if I had any objec- 
tions to putting a saloon in there. I said, c ' Saloon 
and I am a Prohibitionist from away back. No 
saloon will ever go into one of my buildings. " He 
turned away without another word and left me. I 
begun to think that he or some one else would buy 
the lot between my property and the alley, fifty 
feet, and put up a saloon, which would ruin my 
property. I went to the owner of the lot and bought 
it, paying twenty-five hundred dollars for it. The 
four bare lots then stood me nine thousand and 
three hundred dollars. After I had gotten the 
houses built they soon filled up with tenants. 
There were eighteen suites of apartments and five 
stores in the buildings. When I first commenced 
to build I was laying my foundation for my apart- 
ment house, which I called the Boston, within two 
feet of the fence next to Mrs. Sherman's house. 
Her tenant, Mrs. Judge Tinnen, who lives there 
and runs a boarding house, came to me and re- 
monstrated with me saying that I should put my 
house further over on the lots as I was ruining the 
neighborhood. I told her that the land was too 



98 The Life of a New England Boy 

valuable to be idle, and so long as I was not tres- 
passing I should continue to build. She said she 
would bring my case before the city authorities 
and have me stopped. About that time her land- 
lady, Mrs. Sherman, came along and told her that 
my house would be an advantage to her house as 
the people who would live in my house would want 
to take their meals in her boarding-house, which 
has occurred and she was satisfied. Having the 
apartment house I installed Mrs. Sanders there 
to manage it at forty dollars per month and a 
suite of front rooms on the first floor. She man- 
ages it so successfully that she has a job with me 
as long as she lives, for when I build in the near 
future the four brick stores fronting on Tulare 
street and the alley with thirty-three apartments 
above, I shall give her the management of those 
stores and apartments. 



The Life of a Neiv England Boy 99 



CHAPTEE XVI. 



Built Fouk Homes On the Two Hundred-Acre 
Vineyard North of Town for My Children. 

When I first came to California I built a home 
for myself in one corner of the two hundred-acre 
vineyard. After living there one year my oldest 
son, who came from Kansas to work for me, de- 
cided he wished to marry. He went East and got 
married in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, to Miss 
Lorena Carrie Rice of Kansas City, Mo. She was 
born in Girard, 111. He brought her to California. 
I then gave him my home and moved to Fresno 
and took rooms in the Edgerly Block. They now 
have one daughter and one son, Pearl Irene and 
Lyman Elmer, both graduates of the Fresno High 
School. 

During this time my youngest son Charles D. 
Edgerly lived with his brother, and they together 
run the ranch and vineyard. Later on my oldest 
daughter Nellie Effie Delana, who was living in 




VIEW OF MRS. L. M. R. GARDNER'S HOME 



The Life of a New England Boy 101 

Paducah, Ky., came to California and to my house 
with her family. She married a man by the name 
of Eobert E. Wheeler, born in Brooklyn, N. Y. 
She first met him at our hotel in Lincoln, Neb., 
where she married him. Their son named Clar- 
ence Grant and daughter named Daisy May con- 
stitute the family. I built a cottage home for 
them of six rooms ; also a barn and windmill and 
tank costing twenty-six hundred dollars. My 
youngest daughter Lillian May, nick-named by the 
family Myrtie, married a man by the name of 
J. Sumner Gardner, born in Taylor, Mo. Lillian 
first met him at our hotel at Lincoln, Neb. She 
married him at the Edgerly Block in Fresno. She 
has only one child, Estella Grace, a girl now fif- 
teen years old attending the High School. I built 
for her also a modern cottage of seven rooms and 
barn and windmill and tank which cost twenty- 
eight hundred dollars. My youngest son of my 
four children lived a bachelor's life until 1904. 
He then married a girl by the name of Annie 
Paulina De Craene, born in Muscatine, Iowa, and 
married in Fresno. They now have two small 
children, both boys ; the eldest, Fred Theodore, the 
youngest, Harry Eugene. They live in a cottage 



102 



The Life of a New England Boy 



home which I built for them with barn and wind- 
mill and tank costing three thousand dollars. 
Thus I have located within a mile of each other 
each on forty acres of land, which constituted my 
two hundred acres. I deeded to each child forty 
acres of vineyard and sold to the two boys forty 
acres more, which completes the two hundred-acre 
farm. 




VIEW OF CHARLIE D. EDGERLY'S HOME 



The Life of a New England Boy 103 



CHAPTER XVII. 



Extracts. 

Extract 1: 

Extract from the New Hampton Literary In- 
stitution. Alnmni. Catalog, of 1853-1903, page 
47 of the Regular Graduates of 1856: 

"Edgerly, Asa S. ; son of David and Sarah 
(Sanborn) Edgerly, b. New Hampton, N. H., Mar. 
15, 1834. Studied at Gilford Academy. Entered 
N. H. L. I. '52. Member of Social Fraternity. 
Completed classical course. Residence, New 
Hampton, N. H. Taught school about ten years. 
Engaged in life insurance, mercantile pursuits, 
farming and vineyard industries. He entered 
Hillsdale college, but owing to ill-health remained 
but two years. Married Lydia E. Crowell 1859. 
Is said to have amassed a fortune. Address, 
Fresno, California, Hotel Portland.' ' 



104 The Life of a New England Boy 

Extract 2: 

Extract from the History of California and 
Biographical Eecord of the San Joaquin Valley 
of California. An Historical Story of the State's 
Marvelous Growth from its Earliest Settlement 
to the Present Time. By Prof. J. M. Gruinn, A. M. 
in the year of 1905. Page 1396 of the Historical 
and Biographical Eecord : 

"A S. Edgerly, a resident of California and 
Fresno County since 1887. A. S. Edgerly has 
been actively engaged in the upbuilding of the 
City of Fresno since that date. He was born in 
New Hampton, N. H., March 15, 1834; a son of 
David and Sarah (Sanborn) Edgerly, both of 
whom were born in Meredith, N. H., and there 
died at advanced ages. The grandfather, Samuel 
Edgerly, was born in the New England States of 
English parentage. On the maternal side the 
grandfather, Asa L. Sanborn, was of English 
ancestry, and was a farmer. Edwin and Orrin 
Edgerly were soldiers in the civil war, the former 
being wounded in an engagement. The sixth in 
order of birth of twelve children, A. S. Edgerly, 
was reared on a farm in New Hampshire at New 



The Life of a New England Boy , 105 

Hampton and Meredith, until nineteen years of 
age, being given such advantages as the common 
schools afforded. He entered New Hampton In- 
stitution, then Hillsdale College, where he re- 
mained but one year, when on account of failing 
health he was obliged to leave. He engaged in 
teaching near Cuthbert, Ga., in 1859, as proprietor 
of Springvale Institute, and remained at the head 
of that institution until 1866, at which time he 
went to Sandwich, Mass., as principal of the High 
School, and held that position four years. En- 
gaging then in the life insurance business, he was 
made special State agent for Vermont of the Con- 
tinental Life Insurance Company of New York. 
In 1873 he removed to Otoe County, Neb., and at 
Palmyra purchased six hundred and forty acres 
of railroad land and engaged in the stock business 
until 1875, when he removed to Lincoln and went 
into the Hardware business under the firm name 
of Parker and Edgerly, which continued four 
years. The partnership being dissolved, Mr. 
Edgerly embarked in the real estate business, 
buying, improving and selling residence and busi- 
ness properties until- 1887. Disposing of his in- 
terests, he located in California and at once set- 
tled in Fresno, where he engaged in the real 



106 . The Life of a New England Boy 

estate business. Having a firm belief in the future 
of that city, in 1889 he manufactured the brick and 
erected the Edgerly Block on. the corner of Tulare 
and J streets. In 1891 he built an addition, the 
whole being 150 x 70 feet with an L 40 x 80 feet 
three stories high. He also improved considerable 
residence and other business property in the city. 
Among his other enterprises worthy of special 
mention is the laying out of the Hartley Addition 
of ten acres into lots, which was soon disposed of 
with William Harvey and W. R. Thomas. He laid 
out the Belmont Addition of eighty acres, which 
was sold off in two months in city lots, with the 
exception of three lots which had been reserved. 
He now owns two hundred acres one mile north of 
Fresno on Blackstone Avenue, which is devoted 
to a vineyard and also has an orchard and vine- 
yard of forty acres near Fowler. At West Sand- 
wich (now Sagamore), Mass., August 6, 1859, Mr. 
Edgerly was united in marriage with Lydia E. 
Crowell, who was a native of that place, and a 
daughter of Paul and Lydia (Ellis) Crowell, both 
of Massachusetts, the former of Dennis and the 
latter of Plymouth. Of their six children three 
are now living. Mrs. Edgerly being the second 



The Life of a New England Boy 107 

in order of birth. To Mr. and Mrs. Edgerly six 
children have been born, namely, Willie Alberto, 
a vineyardist; Nellie Effie D., wife of E. E. Wheel- 
er of Fresno; Lillian May Eebecca, the wife of 
J. S. Gardner of Fresno ; Charles D., also a vine- 
yardist; Fred Lincoln and Nellie Elsie died in 
infancy. Through the influence of Mr. Edgerly 
the location of the Postoffice was secured for the 
corner of Tulare and J streets, by giving the lower 
floor space, 50 x 70 feet, to the Government for use 
for a term of years free of charge with the under- 
standing that the property-holders adjacent to 
that corner would pay the rent of one-half the 
space. This arrangement was entered into and 
was carried out for only a few months, when the 
property owners repudiated their part of the 
agreement with the exception of Dr. Chester 
Eowell, who still fulfills his part. In this way Mr. 
Edgerly practically gave the' use of his building 
gratis from 1891 until he sold it in 1895. In poli- 
tics a Eepublican, Mr. Edgerly has always had the 
interest of the party at heart, though never an 
aspirant for official recognition. As one of the 
enterprising citizens of Fresno County, he has 
ever been a supporter of measures that have had 




HOUSES ON KERN STREET, FRESNO 



The Life of a New England Boy 109 

for their object the advancement of the people 
and the prestige of Fresno in the San Joaquin Val- 
ley. His success in life has been of his own mak- 
ing, and in the annals of his adopted State his 
name is entitled to enrollment among the pro- 
gressive builders of a commonwealth." 









1 • 


■ ■ 1 




% 




w*-S<~ "^^Sll 



HOUSES ON O AND TULARE STREETS, FRESNO 



The Life of a New England Boy 111 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



My Own Aechitect. 

Not having been taught drawing in early life, 
I was ill-prepared for a draughtsman, but when 
I had the first house to build I draughted it, and 
after I had built it, there came a gentleman look- 
ing up at the house. He said, "That's a fine house, 
you must have had a good architect. ' ' I told him 
I was my own architect and drew the plans myself. 
He said, "Well, you'll do; it compares well with 
the works of many fine architects." So when I 
had other houses to build I drew all the plans and 
made the specifications myself, and thus I saved 
for myself many a dollar which I should have 
given out had I not have been competent to do 
this work. All who have occupied my rooming- 
houses, apartment houses and stores were well 
pleased with the way they were built. 



112 The Life of a New England Boy 



CHAPTER XIX. 



My Habits of Life. 

Born of religious parents I was taught from 
boyhood to attend Sabbath School and church on 
Sunday, where I learned to read the Bible and 
practice its lessons. I do not remember the time 
when I was so-called converted, but grew up to be a 
moral upright young man, so much so that my 
word was considered by others as good as my 
bond. I was taught, and it was adherent in my 
life, never to drink of chew or smoke, and when I 
have seen young men chewing tobacco and smok- 
ing cigarettes, they have fallen far below my 
standard of morality. I have said I have no time 
nor money to spend in such foolish use, and if I 
had been a tobacco chewer and smoker my wife 
never would have married me, because she hates 
even the smell of tobacco, therefore being a to- 
bacco abstainer I have saved thousand of dollars 
which would have gone up in smoke. It is true 



The Life of a New England Boy 113 

that sometimes when I wanted to make a trade 
with a gentleman who smoked, that I have de- 
plored the fact that I did not smoke, because had I 
smoked I could have gotten nearer him and made 
a better trade. Then again it is nice to sit with a 
friend and smoke socially, but I have never re- 
gretted notwithstanding all these things that I 
did not smoke, and my life has been better and my 
breath has been sweeter, because I did not impreg- 
nate it with the fumes of the nasty weed. I claim 
that my success with being a favorite with the 
young ladies is because I did not chew or smoke, 
and that was one of the reasons I was successful 
in life. As to drinking spiritual liquors I had no 
desire, never having formed the taste. I cannot 
tell one kind of liquor from another, and when I 
have seen young men who work by the week, on 
Saturday night receive their check for their 
services, they go straight to the saloon, and there 
take a drink. No sooner have they had one drink, 
then that begets a desire for another, and they 
continue to drink and treat their fellows until 
they have not a dollar left. Then they go broke 
for another week until they get their pay again. 



114 The Life of a New England Boy 

Thus they go on from year to year until they be- 
come a drunken wreck, and in old age they and 
their families become a subject fit for the poor- 
house, thus the taxpayers have to support multi- 
tudes of such men, and the saloon-keeper becomes 
wealthy by the sale of intoxicating liquors to 
these men who have become beggars and poverty- 
stricken with their families. The saloon-keeper 
says he makes the town, for people would not 
come to town if they could not get liquor to drink, 
but if the saloons were removed the town would 
be far better without them. They say they occupy 
the finest buildings, generally corner stores, in the 
cities, and if they are closed up their stores will be 
vacant and the license they pay will have to come 
out of the taxpayers by direct taxation. But the 
saloon-keeper forgets his store will be occupied 
by good business men who will open up a legiti- 
mate business, and now the very money that goes 
to support the saloons will be paid to the families 
and will go to support these stores, and thus we 
shall have a city without saloons and made up of 
good business men. While the saloon-keeper is 
selling liquor to these men, he rolls in his wealth 
while the man who buys the liquor with his family 



The Life of a New England Boy 115 

rolls in rags. And thus if the nation should do 
away with all the saloons we should have a nation 
of purity, good morals and substantial citizens, 
while we are now supporting orphan asylums and 
old women's and old men's homes, if traced to the 
bottom will be found out because of the saloon. 
Go to our penitentiary and ask the men what 
brought them there, they will tell you in nine cases 
out of ten that they owe their downfall to saloons. 
Go to the justice and police courts and the judges 
will tell you that nine-tenths of their cases have 
been caused by the saloons, and the vast amount 
of money that was used in persecuting drunks is 
obtained from the license of the saloon-keeper. It is 
true that the dry laws of California permits drug- 
gists and other parties to sell liquor by the bottle, 
but it can't be drunk on the premises. The man 
who buys the liquor by the bottle will buy only one 
bottle and take it home and drink it. He also will 
take home the balance of the money which is left 
after buying the bottle of liquor to his family who 
use it in buying supplies for the family, and the 
family will live in peace and plenty, and thus the 
stores left vacant by the saloon-keepers will be 



116 The Life of a New England Boy 

supported, and we shall have a nation of saloon- 
keepers reformed and become good business men, 
where as if they continue to sell liquor they do it 
for the big money that is in it. 



The Life of a New England Boy 117 



CHAPTER XX. 



The Chuech. 

Although I was raised in the church until I came 
to mature years, when I left it, I do not discard 
the church. They are noble institutions, filled 
with good meaning people, They teach the young 
in the Sabbath School and church many things 
that form the character of a good citizen without 
which many of them would grow up and become 
thriftless and demoralized citizens. It is true 
that the clergy are not all honest men. Some fol- 
low the business of preaching because they were 
educated to it and some for their bread and butter. 
Without the churches the world would sink into a 
natural despond, but owing to the aristocratic 
principle of our city churches, they drive many 
a poor man from their doors, so that the poor 
man's church is the majority of the human race. 
The Salvation Army has picked up this class from 
which the church would ask to be excused. 



118 The Life of a New England Boy 



CHAPTER XXI. 



Lessons to Pooe Young Men. 

The world is full of poor men who draw their 
substance from the sweat of their brow. Poor, 
because of their unfaithfulness, they work harder 
to get rid of work than they work for their em- 
ployer. While building the Edgerly Block I had 
a man in my emiploy , and once when I paid him 
on Saturday evening I ask him what he was going 
to do with the money I had just paid him. He 
said he did not know, he had not thought yet. The 
fact was brought out that when Monday morning 
came he had spent every dollar. Also while build- 
ing that building I had another man in my employ 
who was so selfish that when the whistle blowed 
for dinner and he was driving a nail he dropped 
his hammer and left the nail partly driven in. I 
can show you to this day that nail. This man was 
always poor, and a large portion of his time was 
employed with hunting for a job. The fact was 



The Life of a New England Boy 119 

contractors who employed him soon learned of his 
unfaithfulness and discharged him. I also had 
another man in m!y employ whose faithfulness was 
proverbial. He never thought of his own interest, 
but worked faithfully for his employer. So much 
so that he soon ceased to be employed and became 
a contractor. This is a fine type of the world's 
laboring men, most of them work for themselves 
instead of their employer, and are constantly out 
of business while others who work for their em- 
ployers soon rise to be employers themselves. 



120 The Life of a New England Boy 



CHAPTER XXII. 



My Views of Spiritual Life. 

That there is a Spirit World there is no doubt. 
It is not a place but a state of existence. It is every- 
where, and when we have lived the allotted time 
of Earth life we pass from the Earth life to the 
Spirit life. We lay aside the Earth life as we lay 
aside a pair of old shoes and enter upon the Spirit 
life as a child. We are placed under teachers who 
teach us the things of the Spirit world, as we were 
taught the things of the Earth life. We commence 
to develop and grow until we have advanced to a 
state which we will call Eternity in Spirit life. 
Then our teachers leave us and each one goes on 
by themselves and learn the beauties and the love 
that belongs to that life. We continue to develop 
forever. After we have passed out of Earth life 
we soon forget the things of Earth life. Our whole 
thought is upon the beauties and the love of the 
Spirit life. There are degrees of attainment in 



The Life of a New England Boy 121 

the Spirit life just as there are in Earth life. In 
Earth life, as the scholar and the scientist is de- 
veloped, he ceases to take cognizance of the things 
of the past. So in Spirit life when he has devel- 
oped to that degree that he no longer needs a 
teacher, but is a teacher himself, he becomes as it 
were a Scientific Spiritual man and helps to lea^ 
the Scientific Spirit World on and on forever. In 
his career in Spirit life he never sees Jesus be- 
cause Jesus was a good man and entered Spirit 
life as a ripe scholar, but still he progresses so 
fast in beauty and goodness that he is never over- 
taken. Neither will man ever see God in Spirit life, 
because He the greater of all greatness and man 
can never be developed to the extent of coming into 
his presence. We pass out of Earth life just as 
we have lived in Earth life. The good will enter 
upon Spiritual life and begin to grow and develop 
into Spiritual beauties. The moderated good in 
Earth life will pass into Spirit life and remain in 
Status Quo forever; they neither progress nor 
go backward. The criminal in Earth life will pass 
into Spirit life in a state of darkness. He never 
wlill develop, but will remain in this state of dark- 
ness forever, and this is hell which none but the 






1 22 The Life of a New England Boy 

evil will ever experience. Thus we see that the be- 
ginning of goodness and greatness and purity 
and love have their foundation made in Earth life. 
Every one in Spirit life lives by himself, each out- 
stripping the other as his ability permits him to 
do, so we work as hard in Spirit life to advance 
as we do in Earth life. 



The Life of a New England Boy 123 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



Theke Is a God. 

That there is a God 'tis true, for we see the 
work of his hands in everything around us. As I 
exist, God exists. The world exists, therefore God 
exists, and everything within it. Had there not 
been a God a first great cause, nothing could have 
existed. We see God in the mountains, in the 
rivers, in the fields, in the plants, in the flowers, 
in the wind with the great storm King that levels 
everything before it. Take God or the first cause 
out of the world and we shall be left in total dark- 
ness and choas. That God has an influence on 
each is also a matter of fact. Who cannot say that 
at times he has been strangely led. Man has been 
led strangely at times to do things for which he 
cannot account, only because there is a God. God 
is greater than all his works, as a maker greater 
than that which is made. He is in our sleeping 
and waking moments. He directs our thoughts 



124 The Life of a New England Boy 

on all Earthly and Spiritual interests. Can we 
discard this great God? When He robs us of our 
children, husband and wife it is a warning to us to 
live a better life. He is not a God of vengence, 
but a God of supreme love. He wipes away the 
tears from the eyes of the child grieving for the 
death of a mother, yet He sometimes chastises us 
for wrong-doings, every thing seems to turn 
against us as we grope our way in dispondency, 
but after awhile the clouds will break and the sun 
will shine through our tears, and we will learn to 
love God more for his chastisement. Therefore 
we would say to all, remember God and his chas- 
tisements as well as His love and goodness to us. 



The Life of a New England Boy 125 



; 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



Sunday Trading. 

Once when I was a boy eight years old I, with 
my brother William, was sent on Sunday to Sun- 
day School, two miles away. While on the way 
home we fell in with two boys by the name of 
Carter, who were three or four years older than 
we wlere. I had a nice boy's pocket knife which 
Levi Carter wanted. He offered me various 
trinkets for it, all of which I declined. Finally he 
offered me two cents. Now two cents was a good 
deal of money to me in those days and I took the 
two cents and gave him the knife. We went on a 
few paces when I saw something I wanted to cut, 
then I wanted my knife back. I offered him my 
two cents. He refused to trade back, then I began 
to cry. About that time a neighbor came along 
and asked me what I Was crying about. He passed 
on and told my father that the Carter boys and I 
were quarreling and that I was crying. Father 



126 The Life of a New England Boy 

asked me about it that night and I told him all 
about the knife trade. He went to Mr. Carter, 
father of the boy I had sold the knife to, and he 
being a good man and deacon in the church said, 
"The boys have been trading on Sunday, have 
they." He called his son Levi and came to my 
father's and they came to me and he asked me for 
the two cents and I gave it to him. He handed 
the knife back to me and said, "You must not 
trade on the Sabbath day." I mention this cir- 
cumstances to show how strict the children were 
raised in my day to keep the Sabbath holy. 



The Life of a New England Boy 127 



CHAPTER XXV. 



Cutting Wood. 

Once when a boy about ten years old my father 
engaged to cut a lot of cord wood for Mr. Emerson 
who lived about one mile away. It was necessary 
for my brother "William and I to carry luncheon 
to him at noon. Father was proverbial for having 
long arms with great strength. He could cut and 
pile up three cords of wood in a day for which he 
received fifty cents per cord. The snow was deep 
and we had to wade through it to find our father, 
who was in the woods. The shortness of money 
made it necessary for my father to cut this wood 
to help out in his expenses. I remfember on one 
occasion while William and I were passing 
through a pair of bars to get to my father we 
dropped the bottle in which was a quart of cider 
which we were taking for father's luncheon and 
the cider all run out. We deplored this accident 
very much, as father was very fond of cider with 



128 The Life of a New England Boy 

his meals. When we arrived at the place where 
father was cutting wood we told him of our mis- 
hap and all he said was, " Could you not have 
saved some of the cider ? ' ' He ate his dinner with- 
out his cider and relished it very much. I mention 
this circumstance to show that while my father 
was not a drinking man he loved his cider. After 
this incident father found out he could do with- 
out his cider. He went home and cut the taps off 
of every barrel of cider in his cellar, and forever 
swore off from drinking any more cider. Hence 
he was afterwards known as a Prohibitionist. 
Had father been a drinking man his children 
would never have been respectably clothed and 
fed. His sons all grew to mature years Prohibi- 
tionist and each made an honest name for himself. 



The Life of a New England Boy 129 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

A Word to Young Men and Women About to 
Marry. 

Having arrived at mature years no doubt 
thoughts of marriage have entered your minds. 
But have you ever thought of the great responsi- 
bility attending marriage ? Have you ever thought 
of the effect your offspring would have upon the 
Government and world at large ? Have you ever 
thought that perhaps they would be criminals and 
tend to degradation instead of honor and trust? 
The world is what you and your offspring have 
helped to make it. Therefore in those candid mo- 
ments when you have been weighing the matri- 
monial journey with the young gentleman through 
life which or who shall you marry. Have you 
thought of these things? Or have you only thought 
of the good time marrying brings and spent your 
thoughts only of the honeymoon. This latter is 
the cause of so many divorces at the present day. 



130 The Life of a New England Boy 

Many people meet and think they are mated at 
first sight, and decide to marry, when after the 
honeymoon has passed they tire of each other. 
They soon seek and obtain a divorce, and thus too 
many souls are wrecked on the bark of life, and 
their work has gone on until we have a nation of 
divorced people with babies crying for father and 
mother. The great object of matrimony is to peo- 
ple and replenish the world. How it has suc- 
ceeded our penitentiaries and criminal calendars, 
and jails tell us. Let those of similar education 
seek each other socially, and experience will teach 
us that only such should marry. It will bring 
harmony and happiness, otherwise there will be 
wrangling and discontent. A man is not made 
better by a divorce. Thus we would say to every 
one thinking of marrying, "Do not weigh the 
subject lightly, but bring all your wisdom to bear 
upon the subject, and when you do decide to 
marry, decide for life, and let nothing prevent you 
from making an honorable upright matrimonial 
career. ' ' 



The Life of a New England Boy 131 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



My Wife. 

That I have a good wife follows from the fact 
that without her my success in life would have 
been far less. While I have been at the helm work- 
ing for our upbuildings in life, she has guided my 
feet into the successful paths. At times when I 
have been out of business groping in darkness 
as it were, she has held out a helping hand by 
taking in boarders, and thus assisting me on my 
feet again. When I had almost lost hope of suc- 
cess in life again she would encourage me onward, 
and instead, as in many cases, I have been led to 
abstain from drink, the cause of so much misery 
and so many downfalls. While I have never been 
inclined to drink, yet there is no telling what I 
might have done had not she spoke comforting 
and encouraging words to me. By the help of God 
or some unforeseen power we have been blessed 
with six children, four of whom have lived to 



132 The Life of a -New England Boy 

mjanhood and womanhood, and now take their 
places in life as good and upright citizens. Had 
I yielded to my misfortune when it had overtaken 
me, I might have been led to desert my family. 
Then there would have followed destitution and 
possibly divorce, but by the encouraging spirit of 
my wife we have pushed forward in this world 
until We have reached the goal of success. 



The Life of a New England Boy 133 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



Golden Wedding. 

Little did I think when I journeyed three thou- 
sand miles to marry my wife on August 6, 1859, 
that at the end of fifty years of married life I 
should celebrate our golden wedding. But now at 
the age of seventy-five years I find after having 
made four fortunes and lost three, I have the 
fourth one to comfort me in my old age, and noth- 
ing to do but enjoy our golden wedding honey- 
moon. 



134 The Life of a New England Boy 



CHAPTEE XXIX. 



Go to Oakland. 

On account of the summer heat in Fresno during 
raisin-drying time, my wife and I and my daughter 
Effie have made it a practice to spend that season 
of the year in Oakland, Cal. Oakland is a nice 
city across the bay from San Francisco, where the 
climate is ideal. It is never too hot nor too cold. 
Oakland is to San Francisco what Brooklyn is to 
New York City, a place of residence. Business is 
done in San Francisco, and the people live in Oak- 
land, so much that the people speak of Oakland 
as the bedroom of San Francisco. Communication 
is made by cars and steamers every ten minutes 
of the day, thus the travel between the two cities 
is very great, the revenue of which is said to be 
equal to the revenue of the whole of the S. P. 
System in California. The heated term having 
passed we return to Fresno, where we enjoy the 
best climate on the Globe. 



The Life of a New England Boy 135 



CHAPTER XXX. 



Catakact. 

About the year 1890 my left eye began to show 
signs of defections and soon developed into a cat- 
aract, and finally, in 1896, the vision had become 
completely obscured. I consulted many oculists 
in regard to it, and it was finally decided that I 
should have an operation performed to remove 
the cataract. When the eye h,ad become totally 
blind I discovered an affection of the right eye in 
the same manner, which seemed to be forming 
into a cataract also. I discovered that before I 
had quite gotten over the blindness of my left eye, 
I had to have an operation performed on my right 
eye. Total blindness stared me in the face. I had 
the operation performed on the left eye, which 
was partially successful. I had then to go through 
the rest of my life with my right eye totally blind 
and half of the usual sight of my left eye. It is 
remarkable that three of the twelve children in 



136 The Life of a New England Boy 

my father's family had cataracts on their eyes, 
and all would have become totally blind but from 
the partial sight preserved from removal of the 
cataracts. But with the aid of my cane I manage 
to do the business of an average man. Why these 
cataracts should have appeared among us is a 
mystery, traced from away back. 



The Life of a New England Boy 137 



CHAPTER XXXT. 



Deeded All My Property to My Wife and 
Children. 

In May, 1905, believing I was about to die, I 
deeded all my property to my wife and children. 
I did this to save the expense of settling two 
estates. My wife had an estate, and I thought 
that by putting my property in her name that her 
estate could be settled at the same expense with 
mine. I gave to my wife my Fowler vineyard 
and my real estate in the city of Fresno. I had my 
wife make her will giving to each member of the 
family, fifteen in all, each share and share alike 
in the property she received from me. This so 
fixed things that when I pass away I shall have no 
estate to settle. I will have my wife to form a 
syndicate, because she won't be able to handle the 
property. My oldest son will be president, secre- 
tary and manager and my youngest son vice-presi- 



138 The Life of a New England Boy 

dent and trustee and the two daughters the other 
trustees, and they together will manage the busi- 
ness. 



The Life of a New England Boy 139 



CHAPTER XXXII. 



Looking Fokward. 

There comes a time in the life of every man 
when he can no longer work, and he looks forward 
in anticipation of what he would do. Therefore, 
I having arrived at that period, can only anticipate 
what I may do should my health permit and life 
be extended to do it, and if I don't do this myself 
I shall place it in the hands of my syndicate to 
do it for me when I shall have passed away. I 
purpose to build an apartment house at 833 
Street of thirty-four rooms. I purpose to build 
an apartment house at 2322 Kern Street of thirty- 
four rooms. I purpose to purchase one hundred 
and fifty feet on the corner of and Kern streets 
on which I will build a threble apartment house 
of one hundred rooms, and when I or my syndicate 
shall have accomplished this, if I'm living, I rest 
from my labors. I have lived until I did it. Did 
what? Made a fortune. 



HOV 3 t90§ 



NOV 26 W» 



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